Monday January 28th, 2008 Harbor MuseumTours

Hello Everyone,

After a good nights sleep David and I headed out to San Diego Harbor...to take in all of the museums on the waterfront...there are several!!

Our first stop was the Midway. This old aircraft carrier is now a floating museum, It is open 7 days a week from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

The Museum features a self audio tour- that tells the story of what is was like to serve on the carrier, there are also flight simulators, historical videos, gift shop, cafe' and much, much more. By doing the self audio tour you can go through the ship at your own pace and spend as much time at any area you wish. There is so much to see and learn from this tour. We spent about 2 hrs touring this carrier. Then we took a break and had lunch on the fantail of the ship in the cafe', and stopped by the gift store for a few gifts. If you would like to find out more about the Midway check out their website: http://www.midway.org/

SEE PICTURES IN ALBUM #110 : http://picasaweb.google.com/Pandadmd5880



Next we walked about 1 city block to the next set of museums called Historic Ships. As we were making our way there- we came across several sculptures that lined the harbor and benches that had tiles painted by area children...they were all so beautiful to look at. Hope you enjoy looking at them too!!!

We arrived at the Maritime Museum. There were 5 ships that we toured in this group... (1)the tall ship- Star of India, (2) 18 th Century Royal Navy Frigate -H.M.S Surprise, (3) 1898 Steam Ferry- Berkeley, (4) Soviet attack sub- B-39 and (5) 1904 Steam Yacht. First we viewed the Star of India. This was a beautiful old tall ship from 1863. It was wonderful to be able to see inside one of these ship- We have had the tall ships come into Boston on several occasions- but I have never been able to go see them live, and here I was walking the decks of this grand ship. The wood work and artifacts were very interesting. There were several paintings aboard this vessel too. The living quarters were very cramped-space was limited and was used to it's fullest. After we strolled around the Star- we went aboard the H.M.S. Surprise. This was a ship similar to the one used to film the Russel Crowe movie Master and Commander. The third vessel we came to was the Soviet attack sub- B-39. By this time I was all walked out- my back was letting me know so...LOL ... I stayed above and watched the goings on of the harbor and the planes landing and taking off from airport, while David went below and prowled around. He took some really great pictures as you will see. The 4th vessel we went on was the Berkeley. This was a great example of what the old steam ships looked like. There was a lot of brass and stain glass windows. There was a gift store on this one too. We came across a guided tour that was being done on aboard- teaching the kids all about life on the sea. The last ship we went on was the Meade. A beautiful yacht. Needless to say by the time we finished touring 6 ships we were done for the day!!! LOL

To finish off our day in downtown San Diego, we decide to eat that the Rock Bottom Cafe...it was one of the restaurants featured on the GO BOOK we had purchased. The food and ale was great. After a relaxing dinner we headed back to the motel to save all of our pictures and to plan out the next days plans.
For more info about these ships- please see: http://www.sdmaritime.org/
For more info about Rock Bottom Cafe see: www.rockbottom.com

SEE PICTURES IN ALBUM #111 (for the art work) : http://picasaweb.google.com/Pandadmd5880

SEE PICTURES IN ALBUM #112 (for the Star of India) : http://picasaweb.google.com/Pandadmd5880

SEE PICTURES IN ALBUM #113 (for H.M.S. Surprise) : http://picasaweb.google.com/Pandadmd5880

SEE PICTURES IN ALBUM #114 (for the Berkeley) : http://picasaweb.google.com/Pandadmd5880

SEE PICTURES IN ALBUM #115 (for Medea) : http://picasaweb.google.com/Pandadmd5880

SEE PICTURES IN ALBUM #116 (for the B-39) : http://picasaweb.google.com/Pandadmd5880