Lens Harbor

When I was a kid and we traveled near a battleship, submarine or other naval ship museum, my dad always made time for us to stop and tour it. I remember the thrill of exploring the ship and its labrynth of passages and compartments. Always wondering how the builders and crew kept track of all the pipes, wires and other systems that seemed to go everywhere.

My favorite part was checking out the bridge with all the controls, switches, gauges and other instruments. After that was walking the deck and imagining life at sea as I looked over the water. It’s a wonder I didn’t pursue a career in the Navy.

Touring ships is still an experience I enjoy today and want to share with my kids. It’s fun, educational and builds an appreciation of the history these ships made and the sacrifices of those who sailed them.

When I first built my Master and Commander series lens, I added a module listing a couple tall ships from the period that readers could visit and tour. Researching those ships was fun and I discovered there weren’t many places to find such a listing online.

So Tour A Tall Ship was launched. It’s a directory of over 30 tall ships around the world that you can tour. There’s a brief description of each with a link to the ship’s official website for more details. It’s one of my early lenses and a favorite.

Over the last year I added lenses for other classes of museum ships. The format varies a little for each but their mission is the same…provide searchers a consolidated directory of museum ships in each class to explore.

First came Tour A Battleship, soon followed by Tour An Aircraft Carrier. Both include info for wrecks that you can scuba dive on, too.

The newest addition to the fleet, lurking somewhere beneath the waves, is Tour A Submarine. I’m still researching and adding links to this one but it already has nearly 20 subs on 4 continents listed.

An auxiliary member of the fleet is Sail A Tall Ship. While the ships featured there aren’t stationary exhibits, many are historic ships and make ports of call where they open up for tours.

You can find more tall ship lenses at the Tall Ship Fans Group. I’ve also built my first niche lensography featuring all my nautical lenses. I’m always looking for new ships to add to the museum ship lenses so please tell me if you know of one not listed.

This summer offers a cool opportunity to see tall ships in action during the Tall Ships® Atlantic Challenge 2009.  It’s a series of tall ship races on a 7,000 mile course around the North Atlantic Ocean that follows the routes used when tall ships ruled the seas.  The race began in Vigo, Spain, last month and the Dutch vessel Tecla won the first race to the Canary Islands.  Now the fleet is racing to Hamilton, Bermuda.

There are 5 more stops in port cities along the course with multi-day tall ship festivals held in each city.  In addition to watching the ships sail in and out, events at each port typically include ship tours, dock parties and lots of fun, food & music.   These make for a fun date or family outing and can be educational at the same time.

Check the list below for more info on each port’s festival…
Hamilton, Bermuda June 11-15, 2009
Charleston, SC, USA June 26-29, 2009
Boston, MA, USA July 8-13, 2009
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada July 16-20, 2009
Belfast, Ireland August 13-16, 2009

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend any of the festivals this year…bummer.

If you can’t attend either, but would like to check out a tall ship then here’s a list of tall ships you can tour.  If you’re land locked far away from port you can try watching a good tall ship movie to get your fix.  And, for the more adventurous, you could sign up to join a tall ship crew as a trainee.

My wife and I are preparing to run in the Washington DC leg of The Great Urban Race on Saturday. Yeah, I never heard of it either until last month. It’s basically a mini version of The Amazing Race (one of our favorite shows) where you compete against other teams to complete tasks across the city.

As a lensmaster, part of my preparation naturally involved building a lens. I’ll update it afterwards with tips and stories from our experience on the race.

After DC, the race hits Chicago, Portland, the Twin Cities, Austin and San Diego before the National Championships in Las Vegas. If you live near any of those cities and want something different and fun to do, then give it a go.