[I tried using YouTube for the video clips in this post. I’m finding that while I can view them successfully on a computer and on a smart phone, they mostly fail on an iPad. No idea why…]
This post is a collection of videos of dancing and other performances across the Pacific and Indonesia. A few may have been posted earlier. Unfortunately due to technical difficulties I am unable to post clips of the dancing in the Marquesas. Most of the dancing there was tremendously macho — warriors preparing for battle or reselling tales of conquest. You might enjoy Luc’s YouTube video about the BPO’s visit to the Marquesan island of Ua Po. It is 26 minutes long…the dancing that impressed me happens around 12 and 22 minutes in, but he shows much more than dancing:  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bUJM-9FgPfM

Tahiti is also French Polynesia, but much different from the Marquesas. The dancing is much more sensual. Here some of the BPOers give it a try…

Before we left French Polynesia I got my chance, in Bora Bora. Keep your eyes on her, not me!

In Tuvalu we were treated to some wonderful dancing, because we were there during a conference of many nations focusing on tropical cyclone Pam and on climate change. This is a dancing tradition that could soon be washed away by sea level rise. Prime Minister and Mrs Sopoaga sit in the front row (red and white flowers on their heads):

Vanuatu brings a totally different kind of dance:

Actually every village in Vanuatu has its own form of dancing. Here’s another:

And the BPOers join the scrum…

Bring on the costumed Rom dancers (and chief Sekor, going for his third boar tusk and next level of chiefness, with cell phone at hand in his waist band).

Still in Vanuatu, the ladies demonstrate “water music.”

Our welcome to Tual, Indonesia:

Indonesian fabrics are stellar; here is how some are made:

Bau-Bau, Indonesia:

In Selayar we got performances by some young ladies and young men:

Next up, Bali:

At a Chinese temple in East Belitung, Indonesia:

Our welcome to East Belitung:

In addition to the music and dance, we got a demonstration of traditional stick fighting, in which they try to strike the opponent’s back:

Jesse volunteered to get schooled in the sport…

On to the East Belitung before-dinner presentation of terrible-tasting betel nuts…

And wrapping up with a little after-dinner entertainment:

The videos in this second batch are mostly taken underway, or in some cases at anchor. For starters, turn up the volume to hear the call to prayer, which we could frequently hear in Indonesian anchorages.

In fact, we would often hear the calls from two or more mosques at once…

Thailand wasn’t my favorite place, because it was too hot. But it had spectacular islands…

Here’s a clip of taking the dinghy up the river at Tabekat Bay…

Photos and video of big wind and waves never convey what it’s like to be there, but of course I have to give it a try anyway. For comparison, I don’t think I have any video of us just sailing along in delightful weather day after day. But here’s one of a relatively peaceful (but breezy) day as we approach the island of Niue in the South Pacific.

Remember when we got caught in a tropical depression when we left Tuvalu for Vanuatu? Well, I do. Here’s a piece of that, with Bob taking advantage of the rain to wash his hair.

To avoid the brunt of the weather, we sailed on a very uncomfortable close reach to get south before turning west, away from the wind. The crew was anxious to make the turn…

Now to our Indian Ocean crossing from Cocos Keeling to Rodrigues, the wind building…

And Tim getting weary of the conditions…

You might want to turn the volume down for this one, unless you want to hear Tim “curse like a sailor” after a wave spills his coffee onto the computer keyboard…

I accidentally switched the video to slow motion at one point, and discovered after the fact that the slo-mo sort of conveys better what it feels like aboard! But unfortunately the slow motion effect is lost when I upload the video to the blog, so you just have to imagine things happening in slow time, seeing every detail, and feeling every lurch and surge. Here’s one last clip:

 

 

 

 

 

From time to time I’ve mentioned that I have short video clips, and in most cases I’ve been unable to upload them to the blog due to slow internet connections. So now that i have this hiatus at home…and I know everyone is missing my blog posts…this is my chance to post some videos. For those of you who get an email when I post, you’ll want to browse to the web site this time, at http://www.zekethesailor.net. And remember you should have an option when viewing a video to expand it to full screen, which I recommend.

I hope you are half as fascinated with dolphins as I am. It is always exciting when they come to visit, and it is amazing how effortlessly they swim, right in front of the boat. (The whistling that you might hear is Tim trying to communicate with them.)

How close do they swim to our bows…?

The dolphins often seem to appear out of nowhere, but sometimes you can watch their approach, and even sense their excitement in coming to check us out… (The banging sound is our watermaker running.)

Okay, I’ll stop with the dolphins. Here’s manta rays in Tonga — a compilation put together by Bill.

Also in Tonga, Bob and I took the dinghy into a cave, and provided some lighthearted commentary…

Some shoreside wildlife, in Australia…

Continuing with the wildlife theme, this one is from Komodo, Indonesia…

River trip from Kumai (Indonesia) into the national park…

…to see orangutans.

A gibbon gets into the action…

That wraps up my wildlife clips. More sailing and dancing to follow.