The Size of Your Bunk

We visited Patriots Point in Charleston during our vacation and took a tour of some of the ships on display there. The first ship we toured was the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier.

I have never been on a carrier before and the size of that ship is amazing. We walked through the maze of passages and rooms and saw the kitchen, the bathrooms, dining hall, sleeping quarters, doctors office, . . . you get the idea. About fifteen minutes into our walk, Meredith started getting scared. She thought the boat was going to drift off into the sea or something. She kept trying to get us off the ship. I told her after we got off the carrier, we would be visiting another boat and asked her if she was going to feel any better. She said a different boat would be much better. We kept going with our self guided tour and tried to keep her calm.Although the size of the ship is awesome, some of the sleeping areas seemed tight. Bunks were stacked three high and didn't have much room between them. With so many doorways and stairways, I thought that a sailor would be constantly getting lost. Do they give them maps?

As we left the carrier we headed over to the Clamagore submarine. This sub was built in the late '40s and is diesel powered. As we walked down its narrow single hallway I realized that life on the carrier would be a life of luxury in comparison. The bunks on the sub were still stacked three high, but were squeezed together much tighter. There was room to lay down and hope that the guy above you didn't weigh more than you. EVERYTHING on the sub is compact. I know that a fellow blogger has a spouse living on a submarine at times and I have a new appreciation for what that means. The engines on this one were loud and hot. I'm not sure that you would be able to escape that noise anywhere on the ship.

The final boat we toured as the sun was going down was the USS Laffey, a destroyer. Randy was thrilled to check out the weapons mounted to the top of the this ship as we climbed aboard. The Laffey was built in the 1940's and had a part in WWII. The ship was a part of the D day invasion and then moved to the Pacific. The USS Laffey fought near Okinawa, Japan in 1945 where the ship was attacked by 22 Japanese bombers and kamikaze. Five kamikaze hit the ship and along with three bombs. The crew battled to save the ship while fighting off more planes. As we walked around I tried to imagine, unsuccessfully I'm sure, the chaos and panic that the attack must have been. Again, the halls and stairs are narrow. As men would rush to repair damage or fight fires, others would be performing their jobs in this environment. Randy had never heard of a kamikaze before and couldn't understand why a pilot would do that. I tried to explain to him the idea behind it and he said, "That's stupid."

Walking on these ships was really interesting and we all had a great time. Randy seemed really interested in learning about them as we walked and he kept wanting to see more. When we got back to the car he said he would choose the destroyer because he had the biggest weapons but the carrier was his second choice because it had the biggest bunks and the most food.