A Day Out in Portsmouth Harbour

Sticking with our theme of day-trip exploring, on Sunday Aaron and I took a train out to Portsmouth, the UK's only island city. It doesn't feel like an island, but it's location near the water heavily influences the city feel. It's a significant naval port and is the oldest dry dock in the world.

We started out with a trip to the Charles Dickens museum, located inside his birth home. He didn't live there for very long, but the museum has now gathered memorabilia and information about the famous writer's life including, oddly enough, the couch he passed away on.

Next we headed to the docks, specifically the Royal Navy Museum, where we boarded and toured a few ships:

• HMS Warrior (1860) - Launched in relation to the arms race with France. It had a huge gun deck and we were just amazed at the armoury on board as well as the huge size and many levels.
  
• Mary Rose (1511) -  Constructed for King Henry VIII, this boat sank in battle in 1545. Roughly 400 people were onboard and it is estimated only 30 survived. It is thought to have sunk because the cannon hatches were open and potentially built too close to the sea level. As the boat was turning, water rushed into the cannon hatches causing that side to be even heavier and the boat to sink at an alarming rate. It sat on the bottom of the ocean floor until 1982 when a project was launched to raise the boat back up and try to dry out the timbers. The sediment that built up around the ship's side helped preserve items and the timbers from harmful seawater erosion. Today there is an exhibition which displays discovered artifacts, human skeletons, and what's left of the ship that's still intact (see photo with "castle deck", "orlop" and "upper" text). You feel a little bit like you are walking into the sunken Titanic when you walk through it. Plus, it's amazing what information they've gathered about the ship based on the things they've found- from personal items of the crew and through studying their bones, they are able to piece together where different offices were located in the ship and who the people were (ex. an archer was housed in this area because there were arrow rods found and his bones show damage on his shoulder and right arm from over strain).
  
• HMS Victory (1759) - The world's oldest naval ship still in commission. It is best known for it's use in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 where Lord Nelson died while onboard. We walked through the ship... or Aaron mainly crouched through the ship (see photo on the left, bottom left picture). I got to "fire" a cannon that was used in the Battle of Trafalgar (no gun powder or cannon was present) but still, it was pretty neat and much safer!

After touring around the ships and dockyard, we headed to Spinnaker Tower. It's hard to miss on the Portsmouth skyline - a bizarre shape that looks something like a boat sail. Once you take the elevator up, you are 344 feet above the ground. The coolest thing was that there is a glass panel on the floor inside the viewing area so you can go stand and look down... if you're not scared of heights!

We finished the day off with some ice cream in the harbour and then boarded our train back to London. Not a bad way to spend a sunny day out by the English Channel!