Sunday, June 6, 2010

Ahoy Thar Matey!

Today is Sunday and we are off early to a cool Farmer's Market under a downtown Baltimore bridge where we ate an omlet breakfast with homemade pastries. From there we went to the Baltimore Inner Harbor where we bought tickets to see the four ships moored there. The first below is the Sloop of War named the USS Constellation. We climbed aboard.


A plaque telling us about the work of the USS Constellation.
This ship is made of wood and this is the bottom. Of course at this point in the ship you are 10 feet deep (in the water that is)
This was the ships infirmry.
This is the 3rd level of the ship and all you saw were the hammocks for the sailors to sleep in. We tried to get in one but weren't successful. Some of them were pretty high off the ground.
The 2nd level of the ship had all the cannons on it. Can't imagine what the sound must of been like when these babies were all blasting. One thing we noticed is that the ceiling height of these decks might have been 6 foot. A tall man couldn't of been a sailor on this ship.
The captain's cabin.
The main dining room. This one is quite roomy compared to the ones on the other ships.
Eddy and Lindsay on the main top deck of the USS Constellation.
Eddy's in one of the ship's hospital beds which isn't near the ship's infirmary.
This is the captain's office.

Some of the many, many, many ropes. Eddy has found his perch.
They ring this bell to let everyone know the time.
Torsk
This is the USS Torsk. The last American naval vessel to sink an anemy warship in WW II.
One long, long ship. We went in at one end and came out the other.
Eddy is resting on a torpedo.
This is the small dining room for the men.
Bunks look a lot better than the hammocks on the Constellation but they are still very close together.
I think I would hate the very bottom bunk.
The shower stall is on the left and a couple sinks in front. It's a very small area.
So many knobs and handles all over the ship.
Chesapeake

The USS Chesapeake had a section dedicated to the dog mascots on different ships. Most of the dogs were either found as stays or given to the ships by owners in different countries. Mostly what they talked about is how good and faithful the dogs were.This particular dog's name was Sinbad.
USS Taney is the last ship floating that fought in the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.Taney also patrolled the seas working in drug interdiction and fisheries protection and participated in the search for Amelia Earhart.



Just thinking about all of these ships and the surprise attacks makes you very grateful for all those who fought, survived, or were lost in this battle. In this photo, all of the green ships are the ones who survived the attack.



It was neat that the bunks still had their names on them. These were a little less cramped than the ones on the submarine.
This is where they clean and prepared their ammunition for combat.
After reading this, life on this ship was really put into perspective.

One of the many naval coast guard uniforms.

This is where the grubbin happens.



This is the combat uniform worn on this ship.


United States Coast Guard seal and plaque. Thank you for your service!


Saturday, June 5, 2010

Annapolis

Today we went to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. It was amazing! Just thinking of the fact that for hundreds of years, naval sailors have been training to fight for our freedom from this very spot. There were battleships out on the water, old uniforms from the Revolutionary War to today, and lots of memorabilia. It was awesome that they let us in there to look around and that is where we met Billy, Eddie's friend from college. Billy is also the mascot for the Naval Academies sports teams.





















After the Naval Academy, we went on a boat tour of the waterfront at Spa Creek. It was unbelievable how much money these people have. There were gigantic yachts and even more gigantic homes that were completely covering the area. We were also excited to see some battleships coming into port and they were huge and very intimidating.









Finally, we went to the circle in the middle of Annapolis where the state house is located. The houses on these roads are just so rich with history, I had to take a couple of pictures.