Dodging Cyclone Fina 11/19/2025

 

I bet the staff was scrambling to get entertainment lined up for this day since it was an unexpected day at sea.  Then they would have had a hurried printing of this daily.

We played cards in the morning, did trivia then back to cards again in the afternoon.  My sister and friends went to the evening show. 

I took an audio recording of the creaks and pops emitted from the ship, but I was unable to get it to post here.  It was enough to make it hard to sleep at night even with my earplugs.  Our friend was a career navy man, so he explained that the noise was due to the ship being newer.  

Found this app where I could check on the cyclone.  Since we were hightailing it NE out of Darwin, we were getting closer to the cyclone at this point. 

I attended Dr. Ngaire Douglas' presentation on the history of Australia and snapped some photos of the screen.  The Immigration Restriction Act 1901, also known as the White Australia policy, was legislation aimed at limiting non-white immigration to Australia.

The Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904 was a landmark piece of legislation in Australia that aimed to resolve industrial disputes and promote the rule of law in industrial relations. It established the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, which had the authority to settle disputes between workers and employers that extended beyond the boundaries of a specific state. 

As the Federation of Australia was debated in the late 19th century, one topic was where the capital should be located. Melbourne as Australia's largest city and Sydney as Australia's oldest city each had a justifiable claim to host the new nation's capital. Eventually, a compromise was reached to create a whole new city. The name "Canberra" is believed to be an anglicized version of the Aboriginal words meaning 'meeting place'.  The concept of how the city could be laid out was designed by the Chicago architect Walter Burley Griffin in collaboration with his wife, Marion Mahony Griffin. The city's naming ceremony took place in March of 1913. 

ANZAC Day is celebrated every March 25th in memory of the soldiers killed at Gallipoli.

William Cooper was a pivotal figure in the fight for Indigenous rights in Australia. He founded the Australian Aborigines’ League (AAL) in 1936, which became a key organization advocating for Aboriginal people's rights and representation.

During World War II, nearly 1 million American service personnel passed through Australia, with significant numbers arriving from early 1942. By mid-1943, approximately 250,000 Americans were stationed in major cities like Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney. US naval forces frequently anchored at Sydney and Perth.  The social impact of the Americans was considerable with Australians influenced by American trends in fashion, manufactured goods, domestic technology, and consumerism. Cafés began advertising Coca-Cola, coffee, and hamburgers, hot-dog stands appeared, and American cinema influenced Australian fashion. By the end of 1944, two-thirds of Australia’s imports came from the United States.

The 1967 Aboriginal rights referendum was a pivotal moment in Australian history, resulting in over 90% of voters supporting constitutional amendments to recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as part of the Australian population.

The Australian flag uses three prominent symbols: the Union Jack, Southern Cross, and Commonwealth Star.  The Commonwealth Star is the large seven-pointed star under the Union Jack.  Six of the points represent the six states of Australia and one representing the territories.  The other five stars are the stars of the Southern Cross constellation.

The Sydney Opera House was completed in 1973.  See more about the opera house in my 2022 blog posting. 

Dr. Douglas put up this photo of the Opera House with Queen Elizabeth's photo. The Queen officially opened the Sydney Opera House in 1973.   Her photo was displayed upon her death. 

 I didn't hear how long it was displayed but newspaper articles mentioned it on September 9th, and I took the above photo on the 21st of September from our room at the YHA. 

Click on photo to enlarge for reading.  It shows the areas in Australia governed by aboriginals. 

The Stolen Generations refers to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their families by Australian government policies from the 1910s to the 1970s, leading to profound and lasting impacts on Indigenous communities. It is estimated that during the active period of the policy, between 1 in 10 and 1 in 3 Indigenous children were removed from their families and communities.  Once a child was removed from their family, they were forced to assimilate into the White Society. This included being forbidden to speak their traditional language or participate in any form of cultural practice or activity and having to adopt new names and identities. Many of these children were informed that their families had either given them up or had died. 

Checked on the cyclone progress again. 

Cyclone's actual path.  18th - (purple) a low-pressure system a first but became Category 1 cyclone(yellow).
19th - Category 2 (yellow)
20th - Category 2
21st - Category 2 into Category 3 (orange).
22nd - Category 3
23rd - wavered between Category 3 and Category 4 (red)
24th - Started at Category 3 but ended at Category 1. 
The cyclone passed close to Darwin on the 21st as a Category 3.  Fina produced wind gusts of 67 mph in Darwin, knocking out power to nearly 20,000 customers and producing 6.6” of rainfall. Long time residents said it was the worst tropical cyclone impact on the city since the infamous Cyclone Tracy. 

Always had to check out the desserts.  This was definitely not my favorite, but still good.