I Made Intense Eye Contact with an Astronaut at the Maritime Museum of San Diego

 

I was mostly going to the museum to see this ship, so the intense eye contact was a bonus.

The HMS Surprise is so pretty!

Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander series is one of my favorites (second only to Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, which is Master and Commander with dragons), and the film version is one of my favorite movies, so I just really wanted to see this recreation of Captain Aubrey's favorite ship.

It had all its proper 18th-century British naval vessel parts--

Captain's room, with bonus TV playing footage from one of the scenes filmed there

--as well as lots of informational signage:

I'm keeping this photo in my phone's camera roll so I can send it to the kids when I'm worried they're not eating enough fresh fruits and vegetables at school.

I also really liked how the signage explained stuff from the books that I'd never really understood. Prize money IS important!

It's also important not to use your prize money to speculate on lead mines, JACK.

Mostly, though, I just wanted to clamber around the ship and pretend to be an 18th-century British able seaman enjoying the ocean on a beautiful summer day:

We also got to clamber around the Star of India, which is a proper real ship that actually did proper ship things during its working lifetime:

I really liked that each ship, as well as being an artifact itself, is also a museum gallery, in which the museum puts other exhibits. 

The miniaturist at the New Zealand Maritime Museum in Auckland taught me how people get ships into bottles.

Throwback to our England trip a couple of years ago, when we all learned how VERY much the British people love Nelson!

I also saw my first one of these at the New Zealand Maritime Museum, although I've since seen others, I really want one for myself!

Lol

We then clambered around a submarine--

--and ferry, then found our meetup spot for the bay cruise on a historic pilot boat that I'd signed us up for. A couple of us hung out and cooled our heels there, and a couple of us roamed around looking at the nearby exhibits while we waited. I was a roamer, so I was perfectly positioned to glance out the window to the harbor and notice a couple of people just coming up the ladder from the submarine and about to walk into the ferry where we were. 

Those couple of people included famous astronaut Hoot Gibson!

Do not ask me why I can recognize the faces and names of several notable astronauts, for I have no good answer. I cannot recognize the faces and names of most people I went to high school with, and even in my current hometown, where anybody who approaches me is definitely someone I've known in just the most recent 25 years, I'm still faking enthusiastic recognition a good 80 percent of the time. But this time, on this occasion, I looked at Famous Astronaut Hoot Gibson, and I knew that it was 100%, without a doubt Famous Astronaut Hoot Gibson.

I was also absolutely still staring at him when he walked into the ferry, looked around, caught my eye, noted that I was staring at him, absolutely thought that was weird, and continued on with his business. 

ALSO, I then pulled up his photo on my phone and one by one forced every member of my family to look at it, then surreptitiously look at him, then assure me that 1) yes it definitely was Famous Astronaut Hoot Gibson, and 2) yes that IS cool can you stop whispering about him I'm worried he can hear you.

I swear, my kids are so hyper-aware of how I act in public. They always all, "Stop dancing to the piped-in store music. Can you not wave at that dog what do you even expect to happen with that? Please cease staring at Famous Astronaut Hoot Gibson," etc.

Well, joke's on them because one time I was dancing to "Heat Waves" in Kroger, and on the far end of the aisle a totally random dude saw me and started dancing, too, and it was hilarious. Another time, there was a really cute little dog sitting in a lady's lap in the car next to us while we were all driving down the road, and when I waved at her dog she saw me and waved the dog's little paw back and it was adorable.

And while on vacation at the Maritime Museum of San Diego, I saw Famous Astronaut Hoot Gibson and then I pulled up his photo on my phone and showed it to everyone in my family so they could say that they'd seen and recognized him, too!

Famous Astronaut Hoot Gibson did not end up on our bay tour with us, alas, but that's okay because there were other cool things to see.

Like the HMS Surprise from the water!

And several aircraft carriers, since the museum is right across the bay from Coronado.

None of them had planes on them, which I was bummed about until our tour guide explained that they actually fly the planes somewhere else when the aircraft carrier is headed to port, for a variety of reasons. 

Going under the Coronado Bridge was my favorite part of the tour:

The tour guide said that the architect designed Coronado Bridge so that from just the right angle, the pillars and underside of the bridge would show a line of silhouettes that look like California mission bells. I got almost the right angle!

We were also treated to a formation of Navy bombers:

Here's a giant ship that transports giant yachts:

Here's a giant ship that transports nothing but giant containers of Dole bananas:

Here's the Coronado Bridge from afar:

And here's our museum!

I had kind of promised the more bored members of the family that I would be about ready to go after this, but then the big kid and I discovered that the ferry has a boiler room, so obviously we had to go check that out:

And THEN I discovered that the ferry also had an exhibit of manuscript maps and early books of exploration, most on loan from special collections libraries! So while a couple of people spent the next whole entire hour playing on their phones and contemplating murdering me--

I spent the next whole entire hour with these guys and many more of their companions:

This is a map of the Western coastline but the thing is that nobody actually KNEW what that coastline looked like farther north, so in 1593 Cornelis De Jode just made it up!

THE Mercator's son, also a cartographer, published this map in 1613. His take on South America is pretty iffy, but otherwise he didn't do a terrible job!

The best part of ANY map is the sea monsters, obviously.

The seas have so many monsters!

Eventually, after I had looked at and exclaimed over every single map, given all the sea monsters nicknames, and made notes about all the early exploration books so I can look them up to read them later, I finally consented to leave the museum and we went to do what the kids had most been looking forward to that day:

Somali food!

My chicken curry was DELICIOUS, as was my mango drink. Everybody else loved their food, too, and we ate so hard that we didn't even need any to-go containers afterwards. 

Ugh, I'm actually dying to have that curry and mango drink and flatbread again RIGHT NOW!

It's okay, though, because tomorrow I'm going to eat every single kind of ballpark food I can fit in my mouth!

And here's the rest of our trip!

• Day 1: Cabrillo National Monument
• Day 2: Palomar Observatory and Borrego Springs sculptures
• Day 3: San Diego Zoo
• Day 4: Maritime Museum and Somali food
• Day 5: Sea lions and San Diego Padres
• Day 6: La Brea Tar Pits and Beverly Hills
• Day 7: Aquarium of the Pacific and a DIY food tour

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!