Pictures Part 4-Maritime Museum

Mr. Snowbird, Karen, Noah and I went to the Maritime Museum which is on the bay. There is a collection of ships which can be toured.


The first boat we toured was the Berkeley, an 1898 steam ferryboat that operated for 60 years on San Francisco Bay. It has been beautifully restored. The giftshop and a museum is also located there.





Next up was the Medea which is a steam yacht built for William Macalister Hall of Torrisdale Castle , Scotland to be used for entertaining an hunting trips around western Scotland. Since it was docked right next to the Berkeley with entrance from the Berkeley, I didn't get any pictures of it but you can see it by going to the website. Another ship that is part of the museum is the Californian but we didn't tour it as it was actually out of port. She is a beautiful tall ship launched for the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles.

Next on our tour was a B 39 Soviet Attack Submarine. Not my favorite ship since I am claustophobic. We had to crawl through 5 or 6 hatches which weren't the easiest things to crawl through. But it definitely was an interesting ship to tour.






From the sub, we headed to the HMS Surprise. This ship was used in the movie "Master and Commander, The Far Side of the World". So we got to walk the same deck that Russell Crowe walked. It is a beautiful replica of an 18th century frigate. It was first launched in 1970 and was first christened as HMS Rose. We even got to see some uniforms from the movie.








The last ship on the tour was the Star of India. The Star of India was originally christened the Euterpe. It is the oldest active ship and was built in 1863. She was an iron ship rather than a wooden one. She still sails out of port once a year.






We kind of got a giggle out of the following pictures. Apparently groups of school kids can go to "American Revolution Overnight" sponsored by the museum. When we arrived there were a bunch of school kids being called to order by a very stern revolutionary type captain. Pretty funny. Anyway, we later saw some of them rowing this ship with the captain looking every bit like George Washington crossing the Delaware. Somehow though, finding their way between a Russian Sub and a British frigate lost some of the authenticity!


We were lucky enough be be on the Star of India at sunset. The views were amazing.





We all had a fun time climbing through the various ships and learning about their histories.