Traveling Tourists: Maritime Museum & Bay Cruise

MARITIME MUSEUM

We spent the day at the Maritime Museum. We got our hand stamped with two tall ships and leisurely visited all the ships and submarines. We went aboard the Star of India, the Medina, the SS Surprise (was the ship used in the film "Master and Commander"), the Berkley and two submarines; one was an American Sub and the other was a Russian Sub. In the American sub we were able to walk around and through the whole thing. In the Russian sub we had to crawl through a few places - their subs are not as movable friendly as the American sub. We went aboard all the other ships at our leisure and saw the sleeping & captain quarters as well as the cargo area etc. We pretty much had free rein of the ships so that was nice.

After visiting some of the ships we bought a bonus ticket for $3.00 (yes, ONLY three dollars!) for a Bay Cruise upon a little boat that took us all around the bay with a full fledge history lesson for an hour! It was definitely worth the three dollars and the breath taking experience it gave. It was down right awesome. We got a completely different look at the city of Sand Diego and the port as well as view of Tijuana Mexico. Yes, I said Mexico! It was a little hazy so it wasn't a clear sight but was said the view on the other side of the big bridge was Mexico. We thought of going there just to say we went to Mexico but so many friends warned us not to so it seemed like a better idea to play it safe this time. Anyway, the Bay Cruise was by far the best part of the "museum" ticket which was only like $12.00. It was really nice that everything wasn't as expensive as I would have thought for California - so that was a plus for sure! We saw the Naval yard and one of the ships we saw had just come back from a six month deployment at Sea. We also "drove" right under the arm of the largest naval ship in the world.

There were also two humungus cruise ships at the port. I have never seen one in person before but they are by far the largest ships I have ever seen... I never even imagined them to be as large as they were. One was about to leave that night so we got to hear the horn blow and see all the passengers with their life jackets on going through a pre-sail safty lesson. It's amazing how some things can make you feel so small! (if you click on the picture you will be able to see it much better)