Noon Position: N 21º 18′ 07.57″ – W 157º 51′ 55.33″
Today’s featured activity was a bus tour of town on the way to Pearl Harbor.
The tour was much the same as yesterday. So I spent the time playing with new features in iPhone photos.
Arriving at Pearl Harbor we had just over 2 hours to explore. Some of our group were able to get standby tickets to the Arizona Memorial. Other’s got to the battleship Missouri. We’ve seen both of those (along with the on-site museums and films). What we hadn’t done was to see the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum. So we toured the USS Bowfin and the museum.
The Arizona Memorial from the Bowfin Deck 
Cheryl on deck 
Cheryl and the Conning Tower 
On Deck 
Anti-Aircraft gun control 
Checkin’ it out 
Any time the boat was at the surface sailors were posted to watch for the enemy 
“Wet Side” of the bridge – Controls for up/down movement 
“Dry Side” of the bridge – Controls for Electric systems and air movement 
Steering Wheel 
Models used to identify enemy ships 
Models used to identify enemy ships 
Aft torpedo tubes 
Bunks above torpedos 
Crew Bunk area 
Galley 
Crew mess 
Officers Mess (doubles as an operating room) 
Cylinders at the back are the desalinization plant 
Diesel engines to charge the batteries 
Watching me squeeze thru the hatches 
The museum had some outstanding displays covering the history of submarines in the US from the earliest subs to the next generation of nuclear subs with advanced missile launching capabilities.
That left us just enough time to check out the gift shop before returning to the bus for the drive back to the ship.
After lunch we spent a relaxing afternoon (catching up on Blog stuff, reading, napping).
Around 4:00 we were both feeling a bit peckish so we moved upstairs for afternoon tea. We declined the three-tier tray of finger sandwiches and goodies in favor of their excellent scones (the British kind, not the fry-bread that we Idahodians think of as scones) served with clotted cream and jam. Yum!
Our time there was interrupted shortly after 5:30 when the ships horn blasted a couple of times. And we were on our way.
The next land we see will be (according to the schedule) Bora Bora next Sunday.
After dinner we reported to the Explorer’s Lounge for BBB. Once again Bruce busted our brains leaving us with a score of 7 out of 20. It was sad.
After a ‘licking our wounds’ session of conversation we headed to our stateroom to rest, perchance to dream (visions of scones and clotted cream and such).
Tomorrow looks like a typical sea day.
Till then, R
a bit “peckish”?? you’re British is starting to show!! scones with clotted cream!! you Yanks!
and drinking tea with our pinkie finger raised.
I always wanted to see inside a submarine! The Bowfin was used in WWII and is astonishingly small compared to today’s submarines. Any overweight people would not fit through the small hatches that seal off the various compartments (the bottom sill is so high they are called “knee knockers” and the top sill is so low you have to in half to get through it). Very little clearance between the stacked bunks (about 12″) and often set over a torpedo. Space was so tight that the sinks folded up against the wall. All the wiring and cables were exposed but I guess that made it easy to access stuff. The museum was great explaining that after Pearl Harbor the submarines there were about the only ships able to respond. Submarines only comprised 2% of the maritime force but took out about 70% of the Japanese shipping used to supply their troops and homeland! The used to have to surface every night so that they could use charge the batteries but later in the war stole the idea of a snorkel from the Germans – this was a baffle box fitted on top of a pipe that would circulate air down into the ship if they ran just below the surface with only the snorkel and the periscope showing – much safer. Modern subs are nuclear powered and can run months without surfacing.