May 7 - OMG, I must be getting really ditsy!

It's Sunday, we've been at sea all day and the weather has been great, a little chilly but not bad, and it suddenly occurred to me that I forgot to write about a whole day and port.  My brain must be going. I'm going to use the excuse that we changed our clock forward and back four days in a row and I was so enamored with my birthday in Bruges and dinner with my friends, that it whizzed right by me.

May 3  - How could I forget Portsmouth?

So now I'm going to reminisce about my day in Portsmouth, England, on May 3rd when I was still a girl of 74. The last time I was there in October of last year I took a tour to Stonehenge and Salisbury to see the cathedral.  I decided this year to visit the Royal Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth. Seabourn had a shuttle which stopped close to the entrance so off I went.  It was a sunny but blustery day. I should first tell you a little about the dockyard.  It's the headquarters for two-thirds of the Royal Navy's surface fleet, including the two British aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. Portsmouth is on the eastern shore of Portsmouth harbor which flows into the Solent which in turn enters the English Channel. The Isle of Wight lies close by off-shore. The naval base is the oldest in the Royal Navy and it has been part of the country's defensive system for centuries. In 1985 a partnership was made between the Ministry of Defence (yes, that's how they spell defense here) and the Portsmouth City Council to create a property trust and create the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard so the public could see some of the maritime treasures and history.

The three most famous ships at the dockyard are the Mary Rose, which dates back to the early 16th century when Henry VIII was king, the HMS Victory, the world's oldest naval vessel still in commission, and the HMS Warrior, the Royal Navy's first ironclad vessel.

I bought my ticket and walked first to the building where the remains of the Mary Rose are located. She was a carrack style vessel completed in 1512. She served in wars against  France, Scotland and Brittany.  The carrack style ship had high fore- and aft-castles with a low mid-section where most of the gun emplacements were. In 1545 the French were attacking in the Solent and the English ships were becalmed.  As the wind picked up the Mary Rose was able to move and lead the attack on the French. During the ensuing battle the Mary Rose heeled over and water began pouring in through her gun ports. Big guns broke loose and crushed crew members and impeded the escape of others. Additionally netting had been placed above deck to prevent boarders. Instead it blocked the escape of crew members. Out of a crew of about 400 only  fewer that 35 survived.  Attempts were made contemporaneously to raise her but failed and she was forgotten.  Then in the 1970's she was rediscovered and efforts were made to raise her. They finally succeeded in 1982. 

The Mary Rose - it's hard to believe she was in the water for nearly 500 years

The Warrior I won't say much about, except that it was the first fully ironclad ship  in the Royal Navy.

The most interesting ship to me was the HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's flagship at the battle of Trafalgar. She was commissioned in 1765 and is the world's oldest commissioned ship. Much could be said about the battles she fought, but I found more interesting some of the stories of life, and death, on board. In movies like Master and Commander I'd seen that the men slept in hammocks. I didn't know that officers including the captain did too.  When a man died on the ship, his body was wrapped in his hammock and he was buried at sea. Nelson was married to a woman named Frances Nisbet, but he famously had an affair with Lady Emma Hamilton. After a long career in the Navy in both the Caribbean and in European waters, his career culminated at the Battle of Trafalgar against the French and Spanish fleets in October 1805. Nelson commanded the fleet from his flagship Victory.  In the early afternoon of October  21st he was hit by a musket ball which apparently hit his backbone.  He died a few hours later but not before telling Captain Hardy, the captain of Victory to bury him in England.  He also asked him to see that his possessions went to Lady Emma and his child by her named Horatia.  It was quite a scandal.  Upon his death his body was placed in a large cask which was then filled with rum, camphor and myrrh and sealed.  He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Trafalgar was a victory for the English.

The bowsprit of the Victory

This one and below are two of the cannons

I forgot to mention that I couldn't stand up straight on these decks.  Either they were  really short people or the design had something to do with thweight of the ship and the center of gravity.  

I didn't go on it but this is the HMS Warrior, the ironclad.