28 Sunday Aug 2011
Posted in Seattle
The photo editting software I use is called Photoscape. It has amazing capabilities, including making Rich multiple colors. I shot these photos on the day we visited the Flight Museum and took an helicopter ride over Bainbridge Island and downtown Seattle.
28 Sunday Aug 2011
Posted in Seattle
A few weeks ago, Rich and I visited the Museum of Flight in Seattle. This is our second year where we’ve gone and then in the afternoon, taking a helicopter ride courtesy of a discounted Groupon. Our plan-of-action was to see the parts of the museum, which we hadn’t seen the previous year, principally, the World War I and World War II galleries.
After getting our wristbands, Rich wanted to go back outside and check out the planes we’d never seen before. He was particularly interested in the Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress. After learning, we need to enter our name in a drawing to get a tour of the inside of the plane; Rich huffed back into the museum and submitted our names.
The drawings was going to be held in 30 minutes or so, providing us with an opportunity to see a smidgen of the T. A. Wilson Great Gallery, which is a giant glass structure with over 40 aircrafts suspended from the ceiling and on the ground. It’s breathtaking. You can easily spend several hours gawking at the aircrafts and snapping photos.
However, thirty minutes passed quickly and we zipped back to the table where they draw the names for the B17F tour. Amazingly, our ticket was drawn first. I could feel Rich’s humor immediate improve.
With ticket in hand, we waltzed outside along with two other men whose names were also drawn. The B-17F, owned by the museum is the most authentically restored B-17F in the world, and the other one, which is capable of being airborne. According to the tour guide, “no amount of money was spared in restoring the plane.” Boeing — as much a part of Seattle as Starbucks, Nordstrom’s, and Microsoft – provided a blank check.
Over 12,700 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses were built, starting in the 1930’s. Improved over the years, the heavy bomber aircraft became pivotal during World War II for bombing missions, most notably the Eighth Air Force raids on Germany and occupied territories. They were built tough to hold a crew of ten along with 8,000 pounds of short-range or 4,500 pounds of long-range bombs, and up to thirteen machine guns in the nose, tail, gun turret beneath the plane, two in the middle, and one behind cockpit. A further advantage of the B-17F was its ability to fly at 10,000 feet for ten hours at 200 to 250 miles per hour.
The B-17B at the Flight Museum was built in 1943 at Boeing’s Plant II. A year later, it left for the European Theater, but was never used in combat. Instead in November 1945, it was withdrawn from service and shipped to Altus, Oklahoma for disposal. A year later, it was stripped of war-making items and plunked in a War Memorial park in Stuttgart, Arkansas.
In 1953, it was purchased and turned into an aerial sprayer and later used for fighting forest fires, and as a tanker. In the late 60’s it appeared in several movies, including Tora Tora Tora, and the Memphis Belle. By 1991, it was in terrible shape, but was fortuitously purchased and installed at the Museum of Flight, where restoration began.
Ten years later, Rich and I got to tour the plane!
While Hollywood portrayed the glamour of being a World War II fighter pilot and crew member, it must have been miserable. Miserable!
The aircraft is as it names, implies, a flying fortress. There’s no heat so everyone wore heavy uniforms that were heated, along with gloves, hoods, helmets, boots, and an oxygen mask. Everyone was trained to constantly watch their individual oxygen regulators to make sure it was working – see the blinking “eye” in the B-17 album.
One crew member, usually a smaller man, would crawl into the tail section and shoot one of the machine guns. Another man would climb into the turret beneath the plane, lie on this back with his feet in stirrups, and spin around 360-degrees, firing at enemy planes. Two men sat in the nose of the plane, ready to shoot their machine guns. Two men stood in the middle of the plane, with no protection from the weather, as they fired machine guns. The navigator also had a gun, and was located behind the cockpit. In the cockpit were two pilots. The ten men stood or sat on a “swing seat” behind the navigator and fired a machine gun by looking through the “blister” on top of the plane.
These men stood at their post for up to ten hours. The “bathroom” was a tube that extended out of the plane with a metal funnel at one end. The tour guide noted the crew was very careful to make sure the funnel – icy cold – never touched any part of the skin. The kitchen was a thermos of hot coffee with paper cups.
The tour guide said that up to 1,000 B-17’s would fly in format, and then drop their bombs at once – carpet bomb – over Germany, France, and other axis strongholds. It also mentioned that there were huge fatalities with over half of the B-17’s being shot down.
It took over an hour to go through the Boeing Bee, the B-17, at the Museum, but it was certainly worth the time. Afterwards, we saw most of the World War I and II galleries. There’s so much to see… next year!
16 Tuesday Aug 2011
Posted in Seattle
As part of the Seattle Seafair, you could sign up to ride on a military vessel. Rich and I were lucky to have been chosen to ride on the largest ship, the USS Bonhomme Richard (means “Good man Richard” in French), an amphibious assault ship named in honor of John Paul Jones’ famous frigate, which sunk after successfully securing the surrender of the British frigate, the HMS Serapis.
The Bonhomme Richard we boarded, along with several hundred people, including Sea Scouts and ROTC cadets, is 844-feet in length, 106-feet wide, and can carry 1,800 troops along with a crew of 1,200 officers, sailors, and marines. In its well and top decks, it can carry three Landing Craft Air Cushions (LCAC), several M-1 Abrams tanks and Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAV), and a dozen or more Harrier jets, and assorted helicopters. It’s amazing how many different types of helicopters existing from two-seater attack helicopters (very cool) to behemoth cargo helicopters that can carry up to 37 troops along with equipment and supplies.
We were one of the first passengers to get on the ship, which afforded us the opportunity to ask lots of questions and walk around and see the many aircrafts before the ship left port.
When the ship “pushed off” around 10:30, several tugboats pulled it off the dock and guided it past container shipping facilities where several men on top of a huge crane were taking pictures of the ship… at the same time people on board were snapping their pictures.
Once in open water, we zipped along until we were opposite Bainbridge Island. I tracked our route via my magical Windows Phone!
Around noon, they started to serve lunch, which was quite a production and took several hours. We were towards the back of the line and as we approached the food, an officer shouted out that there was no line if you wanted chicken. I told Rich, he was going to have to skip getting a hamburger or hotdog…
The barbequed chicken was delicious! The only drawback was the “chicken line” only offered baked beans and potato chips, instead of salads and other goodies. Although, after gobbling the chicken, the “hamburger and hotdog line” dwindled down to a few people, presenting an opportunity for Rich to get a hotdog, at least ten cookies, potatoes salad, and an apple!
After lunch, the two LCACs were launched. They resemble giant black beanbags with a flat deck, two huge fans at the back, and mechanical equipment along the edges. The drivers sit in a small cab with four windshield wipers that whap back-and-forth as the LCAC kicks up sprays of water.
Even though, they look awkward, LCACs can go up to 45 miles per hour. While in the well deck of a ship, tanks and other vehicles, along with equipment and troops – up to 75 tons — can be loaded onto a LCAC. The giant air cushion then flops out of the ship and zooms to land, dropping off its cargo and then returning to the ship to carry more.
Joining the Bonhomme Richard was a destroyer, Coast Guard ship, and several small Naval vessels. To further ensure the safety of the ship, there were several armed sailors, stationed strategically around the ship. It was kind of’ creepy, seeing fully-armed sailor walking the decks.
As the ship headed back to downtown Seattle, the sailors and marines were told to line up around the upper deck. It was very cool to see them. And as we approached downtown, they saluted their host city.
It was an amazing day! We can’t wait to sign up again next year!
15 Monday Aug 2011
I wonder… will I ever finish writing about our trip to the Chesapeake last May? Well, this is my last article!
When I last wrote, we were pushing off from the city dock in Annapolis and heading back towards Rock Hall, where we originally chartered, Carol Catie, a 32-foot Hunter sailboat. After two amazing days in Annapolis, the next day was a blur. We sailed, motored, and then anchored overnight, in the Chester River, a major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.
According to “local lore,” in 1774, in defiance against King George III, colonist boarded a British’s ship anchored in the Chester River at Chester Town and threw overboard its load of tea. The deed, which mimicked the Boston Tea Party, became known as the Chestertown Tea Party.
The tea-partiers of yore destroyed crates of tea. The tea-partiers of today are destroying the entire country. How times have changed!
As we approached the Chester River, we watched as the clear sky turned stormy and streaks of lightening flashed in the distance. I wanted to anchor and get away from all metal. Rich opted to man the wheel and keep the boat in the center of the river, away from the banks. The entire time, I rehearsed what I would do when Rich got struck by lightning, as it traveled down the mast, up the wheel, and through the top of his head.
Two rule of lightening safety is to 1) get out of the water, and 2) avoid all metal objects. And if you’re on a boat, stay in the cabin, away from all metal and electrical components.
In spite of lightening crackling around us, pelting rain, and bellowing thunder, we avoided getting electrocuted.
As the sky lightened, Rich looked around for a place to anchor. Normally, or at least in the Puget Sound, you anchor close to shore. In the Chesapeake, however, where the middle of a river is a staggering ten-feet deep, you stay away from the even more shallow shore. So, we anchored smack dab in the middle of the Chester River. It was weird beyond words to spend the night, anchored in the middle of a river.
The next morning, we zoomed back to Rock Hall to return the boat, and put the pedal-to-the-metal to reach Falls Church, Virginia, where we’d be staying for the next three nights. Our motel was less than a mile from a metro station and the train to Washington D.C. and the Smithsonian.
Rich had his handy-dandy GPS so we simply needed to listen and follow the directions, straight through Georgetown, during rush hour. Lovely Georgetown where the speeds down the main drag approaches five miles per hour!
In spite of moving at slug-speed, it was fun to see the many stores, everything from Georgetown Cupcakes to Abercrombie & Fitch, Anthropologie, BCBG, and Brooks Brothers… to United Colors of Benetton, Urban Chic and Victoria’s Secret. Sprinkled among the stores are over one hundred restaurants of every ilk, salons and spas, pharmacies, electronic and telephone stores, art galleries, shops for toys, fabrics, home décor, and boutique and hotels, including the Four Seasons to Ritz-Carlton.
It’s amazing the density of commerce and activity. The sidewalks were three- to four-deep with people. There wasn’t space along the curbs to even accommodate a Smart Coupe, let alone delivery trucks, which were forced to park in the middle of lanes, further impacting the ability to drive much more than a few feet at a time, and then wait through multiple signals to move to the next congested block.
With the throngs of people, each year, the Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID) Clean Team collects more than 80,000 bags of trash. Daily, they clean more than five miles of sidewalk!
After creeping through Georgetown, we encountered minimal traffic to Falls Church, a suburb with less than 12,000 people, but home to two Fortune 500 companies – defense conglomerate General Dynamics and Computer Science Corporation (CSC) – and the headquarters for aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman.
As we drove into the parking lot of our hotel, we noticed a helicopter hoover overhead with a man balanced on one of the landing skids. As we later learned, the utility company checks power lines via helicopter!
After chucking our stuff into our rooms, we took a Metro train to Foggy Bottom (downtown Washington D.C.). With most of the Smithsonian museums closed (some stay open until 7 p.m.), we opted to see the outside sites, including the Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt memorials. We skipped the Vietnam Memorial, but spent time in the Korean Memorial, which I find fascinating. It features life-size sculptures of soldiers, in rain ponchos, carrying heavy backpacks and artillery as they slog to an unknown location – perhaps a battlefield or an encampment. Their faces filled with exhaustion.
Because Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minster of Israel, was visiting President Obama, we couldn’t get close to the White House. Although, when we walked across a field, we could see it in the distance.
When our legs felt as if they couldn’t take another step, we headed back to Falls Church where we argued about where to eat dinner. I wanted to drive around and stop when we spotted an interesting restaurant. Rich chose to use his GPS to find a “Mexican” restaurant. After several false turns, we arrived at the restaurant, which served both Mexican and Salvadorian food.
I’d never had Salvadorian food, so I decided to be adventurous. Rich concurred, and we both chose a combination plate, which provided a wonderful assortment of foods from fried cassava root (yucca) to chunks of chewy pork, cheese pupusas (thick hand-formed tortilla filled with cheese and then fried) and fried plantains. Everything tasted wonderful, even the pickled cabbage with a tangy dressing.
Unfortunately, it was after 9 o’clock at night when we reached the restaurant and gobbling plates of heavy, spicy Salvadorian food wasn’t conducive to sleep.
The next morning, after a breakfast of raisin bran and bananas, we were ready for a day on the “Mall.” Our first stops were the National Park Service exhibit (the only place open early Saturday morning) followed by the National Aquarium, the oldest aquarium in the country. The tropical fish gave me pause, remembering seeing many of the same fish while snorkeling in the British Virgin Islands.
Rather than just showing random fish, the National Aquarium focuses on the fish and plant life one would find in National Marine Sanctuaries, such as the Florida Everglades (alligators and turtles) and Keys, Channel Islands near Santa Barbara, California, Fatatele Bay in America Samoa, Flower Garden Banks off the coast of Texas and Louisiana, and Gray’s Reef off Samelo Island, Georgia.
There were also critters from the Rio Grande, Potomac, Colorado, and Mississippi Rivers.
I think we went to the Air and Space Museum next. It’s hard to remember because the next two days were a blur with us plodded through the National Portrait Gallery on Sunday afternoon, completely exhausted and virtually brain dead. It was sad because the pictures in the gallery were extraordinary, but I struggled to walk from room-to-room and absorb what I was seeing.
To thoroughly see all Smithsonian and non-Smithsonian museums, art galleries, zoo, gardens, parks, monuments, and other exhibits in the area — such as the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Library of Congress, and Supreme Court — would probably take a month. It takes at least 4-hours to walk at a brisk pace, scanning most of the displays, in a larger museum like the National Museum of American History.
In spite of much of what we saw congealing into a blur, two museums stood out: National Building Museumand United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The former is a dramatic brick and terracotta building, designed after an Italian Renaissance palace, with a massive 15-story interior with eight Corinthian columns that are 75-feet high. One of the pictures in the slide show associated with this article shows Rich standing in front of one of the columns.
One of the exhibit at the National Building Museum was America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930’s, which showed the homes, transportation, and cities of tomorrow. Very little of what they envisioned became reality. Although, many of the buildings from the Dallas World’s Fair still stand, and Rich and I were able to see them when we visited the Dallas State Fair.
I was scared to visit the Holocaust Museum, but Rich insisted. Early in the morning, we waited in line to get tickets to enter the museum later that afternoon. To see the exhibits, you start by getting an “identification card,” which provides the story of a real person who lived during the Holocaust. You then ride an elevator to the fourth floor, which opens up to a huge picture of what American soldiers found when they liberated the concentration camps in 1945. As you walk through the exhibits and down the floors, you learn about the “Nazi assault,” final solution,” and then “last chapter.”
It starts off showing how the Nazi Party formed and the initial euthanizing of crippled or mentally retarded individuals. You learn how the Germans did research to show how they were the superior race and could determine Aryan nationality by the size of a person’s head, eye and skin color. Soon, Jewish businesses are forced to close and Jewish and other “undesirables” were rounded up.
A large number of Jewish and other nationalities, which I didn’t know, were killed by convoys of German soldiers driving to villages and cities, rounding up people and then killed them. For instance, in 1942 in the Czech Republic village of Ludice, all 192 men over 16 years of age were murdered on the spot. The rest of the women and children were sent to concentration camps. The village was then burned and leveled.
There were also gas vans with airtight compartments in which exhaust gas was piped in while the engine was running, resulting in the death of the victims inside by carbon monoxide poisoning. Gas chambers replaced these vans because the drivers found the victims screams distracting and disturbing. More pertinent, it was faster and more efficient to kill large numbers of people in gas chambers.
As we walked down the floors of the Holocaust Museum, we passed through the Tower of Faces, a three-floor-high exhibit of pictures from the Jewish community of the Lithuanian town of Eisiskes. One the eve of the Jewish New Year in September 1941, the community was ordered to surrender their valuables. The following morning, they along with 1,000 Jews from neighboring towns of Valkininkas and Salcininkai, were assembled in the main synagogue and its two houses of study. They were kept there for two days with no food or water. On the third day, the men were shot at the old Jewish cemetery. The following day, the women and children were taken out and shot near the Christian cemetery.
Also in the museum is the entrance to a reconstructed Auschwitz barracks, prison bunks and food bowls, railroad cars in which people were transported to camps, prison uniforms, stacks of shoes and hair, handcart to transport deceased prisoners, and much, much more.
We spent over four hours in the museum and didn’t get to see all of the exhibits on the first floor. It was an exhausting experience.
At the start of our tour through the museum, we’d taken three “Identification Cards,” which detailed what happened to each person. On the first floor, we learned about Gabrielle Weidner, a Dutch woman whose father was a minister in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. She ended up being sent to Ravensbrueck camp in Germany, where she died of malnutrition days after being liberated by Soviet troops.
Carl Heumann was one of nine children born to Jewish parents living in a village near the Belgian border. He and his family were deported to the Theresienstade ghetto in Czechoslovakia; however, after being caught stealing food, they were deported to Auschwitz, where it’s believed everyone perished, but one of his daughters.
Born to a Jewish family in Prague, Charles Bruml was also deported to Theresienstadt, and then Auschwitz. Three years later, when the Allies approached, he was force-marched to Gleiwitz, put on open coal wagons to Dora-Nordhausen, and finally the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Miraculously, he was liberated by the British army in the spring of 1945.
Millions died during the “final solution,” including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Poles, Roma and Sinti (“gypsies”), persons with disabilities, blacks, and Soviet prisoners of war. I can’t imagine it happening with today’s rapid exchange and sharing of information. On the other hand, genocides are occurring today in the Congo, and Sudan, and watch groups are monitoring Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Burundi, and Chechnya, Russia.
04 Thursday Aug 2011
Tags
Annapolis, Baltimore Inner Harbor, Carol Catie, Chesapeake River, Dobbins Island, Julie Lary, Little Dobbins Island, Magothy River, Maryland State House, Richard Lary
In my last article about our May east coast sailing adventure, we were staying in a delightful marina in Baltimore. We woke to clear skies, enjoyed our usual breakfast of cereal and bananas, coiled our lines, and then eased out of the slip. As we sailed out of Baltimore Inner Harbor, we enjoyed seeing the many cargo ships, waiting to be unloaded and loaded.
Because it was Sunday, there were few boats on the water and little activity on the shore. As the wind picked up, we raised our sails and tacked back-and-forth, and then circled around the Baltimore Lighthouse several times, trying to peek inside through the tattered curtains.
A few days later, Rich purchased a small watercolor of the lighthouse at an art gallery in Annapolis. The painting now hangs in his office, next to his many other sea-themed paintings.
That evening, we dropped anchor by Dobbins Island, a small, kidney-shaped island in the Magothy River, which is a popular for partying, water-skiing, and hanging out in the calm and shallow water. When we arrived, quite a few boats were anchored, and many small boats and dinghies dotted the shore with people in bathing suits, sun-tanning, drinking libations, and talking loudly.
Across from the island, was a large house, which had a sizable replica of a lighthouse, complete with a bright light on the top. The house, built on Little Dobbins Island is very controversial because it was constructed without permits. In 2005, the county ordered the lighthouse, pool, and gazebo be torn down. Fortunately, for us, the lighthouse stood and was operational, six year later.
We enjoyed a pleasant dinner and evening, reading and planning the next leg of our trip. Around 10 p.m., we decided to call it a night. Rich checked his GPS one last time to make sure our anchor was holding. It hadn’t!
We threw on warm clothes, started the engine, pulled up the anchor, and circled around to find a good place to once again anchor. After two attempts, the anchor held when the engine was revved up in reverse. Rich reset the GPS to track a circle around the anchor, and we once again got ready for bed.
Throughout the night, Rich woke briefly to check the GPS. If our boat started to drift, the GPS was supposed to sound an alarm. Around 3 a.m., Rich woke and thought the water breaking against the boat sounded funny. He flicked on a flashlight, picked up the GPS, and screamed, “We’re dragging anchor! Get dressed!”
Rich threw on some clothes, started the engine, and pulled up the anchor. I was a bit slower and more thoughtful, flipping on the “instruments switch” in the control panel, and popping off the cover of the depth meter as I scrambled onto the deck.
It was pitch black outside, but I could see three things: The anchor lights on top of the masts of the two sailboats by Dobbins Island, and the light in the mini lighthouse on Little Dobbins Island. The latter was maybe 100 feet away, which meant, we drifted across the Magothy River and were dangerously close to grounding the boat.
When we studied the GPS track, days later, there was no doubt that we’d grounded the boat, but it’d miraculously rocked off the sand and was “floating” when we discovered we were no longer anchored.
With the depth meter, we could navigate into the deeper areas of the Magothy so we had a least a few feet of water beneath our keel. To make matters worse, it was rainy, windy, and cold outside. Barefoot with rain gear, I tried to discern where Rich wanted me to drop the anchor, but was often drown out by the wind or the anchor would hit bottom within a few second, but not catch and the boat would quickly drift from where he wanted to anchor. Our first three attempts were failures. One attempt was perfect, but as the boat started to spin around, we noticed we were within a foot of a channel marker.
Another attempted seemed to hold, allowing us time to dry off and make some coffee. But after watching the GPS for an hour, we saw once again, we were dragging. Throughout the ordeal, words were exchanged until we came to our senses and realized screaming at each other wasn’t going to make the anchor hold.
For our final attempt, around 5 a.m., we decided to drive away from the island and the other sailboats to deeper (20 feet) water. The anchor held, but with an hour until daybreak, we opted to have another pot of coffee, catch a few winks while sitting up in the galley, and then, sail to Annapolis.
Tired, but relieved we didn’t have to call a towboat, we pulled up anchor as the sun started to rise. The anchor as surprisingly heavy, and as it got towards the top, I noticed a red string tangled in the chain. At the end of a string was a brick. The extra weight of the brick may have been enough to set the anchor! The boat, a 32-foot Hunter, had only a light anchor, ten feet of chain, and the rest was line (rope). There probably wasn’t enough weight to hold the boat in windy weather, especially on a sandy bottom.
The morning was drippy and very windy. We raised the sails and Rich let me take the wheel. We flew down the Chesapeake at up to 7 knots! It was some of the most accelerating and fun sailing I’d ever done. I stood up, feet wide apart, hands gripping the wheel as the boat skimmed across the waves.
Rich took over as we approached Annapolis so I could research the marinas in the area. There are a lot of marinas and not finding the Annapolis City Marina, we called the harbormaster. We were looking in the wrong place! Plus, the lack of sleep had caught up with us.
The harbormaster, recognizing we hadn’t the foggiest idea what we were doing, asked if we wanted to stay along the seawall. “Sure, why not? What’s the seawall?”
We were directed down a narrow channel, smack dab in the middle of downtown Annapolis. Because it was mid-morning, we got a perfect spot and didn’t have to negotiate, thankfully, around many boats.
Unfortunately, Rich, unlike me who’d tied off the boat and was walking back-and-forth on top of the seawall, didn’t realize the sidewalk was a few feet beneath the seawall. As he stepped off the boat, he stumbled and fell off the seawall. I thought he’d broken something. The harbormaster wanted him checked out by a paramedic.
Annapolis, however, proved to be lucky place for us. After a few days of taking Advil and a little hobbling, Rich was back to normal with nothing more serious than a few bumps and bruises.
After eating lunch, we walked a few blocks to the United States Naval Academy. After having our ID checked, we waltzed over the visitor’s center to watch a short flick and then take a formal tour of the campus. I didn’t know what to expect because visiting a military academy isn’t high on my list. However, I was enraptured with the architecture, size of the buildings, and the physical, mental, and emotional rigors cadets must undergo during their four years at the academy.
The tour guide’s husband and son had both gone through the academy so she could relay first-hand the challenge of the Plebe Summer and the first and subsequent years in a cadet’s life. Plebe Summer is “designed to turn [1,200] civilians into midshipmen.” It’s seven weeks in length with each day beginning at dawn with rigorous exercise (in Maryland humid heat) and ending at dawn. There’s no television, leisure time or movies.
Those who survive Plebe Summer, return home for a few weeks before starting their first year, which is equally regimented with midshipmen earning more privileges and freedoms as they complete each of their four years at the academy. A typical schedule is:
Midshipmen are issued several different uniforms and hats, which they must keep in regulation condition and wear for almost everything they do from attending classes (khaki pants and blue shirt) to working out (blue shorts and white tee-shirts or fatigues for military exercises) to getting an ice cream in downtown Annapolis (white pants, shirts, and shoes). They march to meals, are expected to keep their rooms ready for military inspection, and are required to be in their rooms, studying for several hours per night. They are also issued a cap, which they wear for four years, and then ceremonially throw up in the air upon graduation.
Since 1845 more than 60,000 young men and women have graduated from the academy, served in the military, and then gone onto various careers, including President and nearly-President of the United States (Jimmy Carter and John McCain). Click hereto see the photos on the academy’s site.
Once accepted into the academy, everything is paid for including tuition, housing, food, books, computers, uniforms, dry cleaning of uniforms, athletic gear, and personal toiletries. Plus, midshipmen are given a monthly allowance for extras they may want to buy!
I recall the tour guide saying it costs around $350,000 per cadet over a four-year period. Do the math. To graduate 1,200 midshipmen costs $420 million!
The entire 338-acre campus of the Naval Academy is a National Historical Landmark. Founded in 1845, the academy is home to numerous magnificent Beaux-Arts style buildings built by Ernest Flagg, a brilliant architect. The largest is Bancroft Hall, which is the largest college dormitory in the world with 1,700 rooms, 4.8 miles of corridors and 33 acres of floor space. The central rotunda and first two wings were built in 1901-1906. It later was expanded to encompass eight wings on five floors.
The Hall has its own zip code. It houses midshipmen, has offices for officers and chaplains, a barbershop, bank, travel office, small restaurant, textbook store, laundromat, uniform store, cobbler shop, post office, gymnasium, full medical and dental clinics, and optometry and orthopedic clinics.
The next stop in our tour was the Naval Academy Chapel, which had dramatic stained glass windows and a serene ambiance. In the crypt beneath the chapel is John Paul Jones, America’s first naval hero who exclaimed “I have not yet begun to flight,” when the ship he was on, the Bonhomme Richard, was confronted by the British frigate HMS Serapis. After heavy fighting and extensive damage to both ships, Captain Pearson of the Serapis surrendered. A few days later, the severely damaged Bonhomme Richard was sunk.
As a side note: Yesterday, for Seattle’s Seafair, Rich and I were on the USS Bonhomme Richard. We’d applied and been accepted to take an all-day trip on a military vessel, but didn’t know whether we’d end up on a Canadian ship, U.S. Destroyer, U.S. Coast Guard ship, or the Bonhomme Richard. A few days before, I was writing about John Paul Jones and when I learned he’d commanded the Bonhomme Richard, I tracked down Rich and announced I knew which ship we’d be on. Sure enough, I was right!
The massive marble and bronze sarcophagusin which Jones’s body is interred is a bit creepy. My imagination doesn’t allow me to get past the vision of a skeleton with bits of putrefied flesh, yellowed teeth, tangled hair, disintegrated clothing, and tarnished war metals.
After visiting the chapel, we scurried to Preble Hall, where the U.S. Naval Academy Museum is located. We found this exhibits so interesting we returned the next day. I was enthralled by the Class of 1951 Gallery of Ships, one of the world’s finest collections of warship models from the 17thcentury to modern times. The ships, made of wood and bone, were built to show what the actual ship would look like when completed. The detail of the ships is extraordinary.
By the time we left the museum, Rich was in a lot of pain from his fall earlier in the day. We returned to the boat so Rich could lay-down while I busied myself by cleaning the outside of the boat with buckets of water (from the river), white-wall cleaner, and a sponge. It kinda’ fun… if you only do it once or twice a year during a charter.
As the day drew to a close, groups of midshipmen started to emerge from the Academy to enjoy the cool evening, frequent restaurants, shops for stuff, visit with other midshipmen, etc. They wore white pants or skirts, white shirts, white hats, and white shoes. They walked with confidence and civility, and most likely, relief with the end of the school year drawing to a close. Many were probably days away from graduating and getting assigned to a ship or other role within the Navy.
The streets were also filled up with local folks: Couples on dates, parents with young children, pierced and tattooed teens with their skateboards, senior citizens holding hands, and boat-owners, like Rich and I. It was a perfect evening for strolling, bopping into the many small shops that line the narrow streets, people- and cadet-watching, and of course, tracking down and eating ice cream (our priority).
Downtown Annapolis is picture-perfect with historical brick buildings, including the capital buildings, charming restaurants and shops, ornate early American churches, boutique inns, and extraordinary row houses from the simple to ornate. I loved walking around Annapolis!
The next day, we awoke to flooding. Unusually high tides combined with unusually large amount of rain resulted in water seeping through the seawall and covering the parking lot and bricked plaza with a foot or so of water. Most of the water didn’t reach the nearby buildings, but did make a mess of the recycling and trash that’d been left out for garbage pick-up. Check out the pictures in the slide show.
Within a few hours the water receded, and life returned to normal. We chose to further explore Annapolis, taking a bridge across Spa Creek to an older part of town where a small maritime museum was located. Unfortunately, when we arrived, there was a cadre of teachers and parents waiting for bus-loads of children. We opted to skip the museum, in spite of the occasional dribble turning into a full-blown downpour. By the time we got back to the boat, we were soaked!
We spent the rest of the day ditching raindrops as we toured the Maryland State Buildings (Annapolis is the capital of Maryland), St. Anne’s Church (each kneeling bench was covered with a unique needlepoint pillows, which must have taken the members years to create), Banneker-Douglass Museum, and the Annapolis National Historical District, which has more than 1,500 restored and preserved buildings and houses.
That evening, we once enjoyed the ambiance… and I worked up the courage to stop a group of midshipmen and ask whether they’d pose with me for a picture. They were very polite and patiently answering my numerous questions.
We spent the rest of the evening, sitting in the cockpit of our boat, marveling at the city and its residents until our eyelids grew heavy. Sadly, we climbed into the galley, falling asleep listening to the voices outside. The next morning brought clear skies as we pushed off the seawall and headed to our next destination.
