Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum

(Naval Weapons Station, Charleston, SC) Hi 78 Lo 62 – It was another beautiful day here in the South Carolina "Low Country." We spent a wonderful day yesterday at Fort Sumter, and today was hopefully going to be just as wonderful. Jim has been looking forward to visiting Patriot's Point Naval and Maritime Museum. It's the home of the WWII-era aircraft carrier USS Yorktown and the last of the old diesel submarines, the USS Clamagore.

Before we get into today's activities, I wanted to mention the admission prices for the Fort Sumter visit yesterday. Fort Sumter is a National Historical site, which normally would allow us to use our National Park Service Access and Senior Passes for discounted or free admission. However, the admission to the fort is free... that's the good news. The bad news is, you have to pay $16.00 for the ferry ride. We did get a discount by buying our tickets on base, but if you ever want to visit Fort Sumter be aware of their pricing.

We started out around 10am for Patriots Point, which is over the very high Ravenel Bridge, which spans the Cooper River and connects Charleston with Mount Pleasant. As I've mentioned before, I’m not fond of bridges and this one goes straight up in the air, or it seems like it. (Click on the pictures to enlarge them)

We arrived and got parked, and walked down the long pier to the ships.

The tours are self guided, so you can take your time. It helps to be in good physical condition (and small, especially on the submarine!) because there are lots of steep stairways and small hatches you have to negotiate.

It wasn't real crowded yet, so we went on the submarine first.  I didn’t think I could handle the close quarters, but with so much to see I did ok.


The entry hatch.


The crew of about 80  men had to share these tight quarters. They had bunks tucked into all kinds of small spaces, including between the torpedoes.

Here's the forward torpedo room.

And the aft torpedo room.












Here's ships office... the whole office. Jim got a kick out of this because he was an administrative specialist for part of his Air Force career, so he said this would be where he'd work if he were on this sub.

This passageway is very small.


This is the galley (kitchen). Note the guy coming up from the hatch in the floor. That must be where they store some of the food.

After climbing and twisting through the length of the boat (we were told that submarines are boats, not ships) we popped up out of the aft hatch.

It was fun seeing the inside of the sub, but it was really awkward climbing through the small hatches. And Jim had to duck to make it through the passages. After returning back to the outside world, we went aboard the aircraft carrier Yorktown. The Yorktown has an interesting history. She was built in  1943 and was named after the original carrier Yorktown that was sunk in the battle of Midway in WWII. She served up to 1970, and in 1968 she recovered the Apollo 8 astronauts after they landed from their voyage to the moon. She was featured in the 1970 movie "Tora, Tora, Tora."

This was also a self guided tour, and we spent the rest of the afternoon on it. There was so much to see and so much to read about! There were 5 separate walking tours, and they were well laid out with arrows on the floor... oh sorry, deck... to keep us from getting lost. We took over 100 pictures, but I think these few give you a good idea of what it's like on one of these "fighting ladies."

The flight deck. It's hard to describe how large the deck is.

There were all kinds of aircraft on the flight deck.

One of the berthing areas. There were many rooms like this throughout the ship. Three bunks stacked on top of each other. And Jim says they probably "hot bunked," which means each bunk was shared by three guys who worked three different shifts.

Another berthing area.

This just doesn’t look safe.


One of the heads (bathrooms).

We got to see the bridge area. This is looking out of the bridge, at a bridge. :)

The brig (jail). It's hard to see but that's a skeleton on the top bunk.


One unexpected treat was the opportunity to enjoy a hot Navy meal in the CPO's Mess. It was in the original crew dining room, and on the old style metal mess trays. Very cool, and the food was delicious!


Along with the walking tours of the ship areas, there were also many exhibits of other famous ships in the Navy fleet. The exhibits were spread throughout many of the rooms of the ship, and it was too much information to absorb on one visit.

We finished around 4:00, but before heading home we had to check out the Cold War Submarine Memorial, which is in a small park across the street from the parking lot. It's a tribute to the men who served in our naval submarines during the Cold War from 1947 to 1989. It has a full size replica of the conning tower and tailfin from a Fleet Ballistic Missile submarine. They are placed so it looks like a submarine is just below the surface of the ground.

This is looking forward from the tailfin toward the conning tower. They're place the correct distance as on a real sub. It was quite an effect!

Along a path that circles around were 7 educational stations that explained the achievements and sacrifices of the submarine "cold warriors" and their families who waited behind.

Another very entertaining and educational day. We enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoyed us sharing it with you.

Tomorrow we’re not sure what we’ll do since there’s storms headed our way. It may end up being a day to hang around the rig and catch up on our reading. We'll see...