It may be home from home but one circumnavigation guide suggests the top visitor attraction when sailing the UK is the Portsmouth Naval Dockyard. So, a few of us boarded the Gosport ferry to go sight seeing.
Having not long read the latest Shardlake novel 'Heartstone' (C J Sansom) describing the life of the archers on the Mary Rose, I was looking forward to seeing her in the new museum. But sadly it is not yet open. The new museum is in the back of the photo with HMS Victory in the fore. It is remarkable how, standing alongside in the dockyard, the latest Type 45 destroyers seem to salute these heritage flagships which have seen every new generation of ship come and go from Portsmouth over two and nearly four hundred years.
All the artefacts in the museum which reveal life on the ocean wave in Tudor times helped bring the Heartstone novel to life. Life was very different and there's no way, with its moveable ballast, that the Mary Rose would have survived the passage we took from Falmouth - or even move at modern sailing speeds. Even so, the Tudors demonstrated remarkable skill in building her whilst the sailors showed that amazing courage and trust which is common to seafarers everywhere.
We set off early in the morning for Ramsgate, about 130 miles.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteIs Wheal-Go equipped with an AIS transonder?
That's a TLA btw....
The Whitings