Before we entered, we had to pose for pictures.
Our guide for the Pinta, a reproduction here.
The ships are reproductions built by Spain to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus`s voyages to the New World. They took five years to build and cost $6.5 million. The three ships embarked on a tour of the Mediterranean and Atlantic ports of Europe in 1990 and 1991. After a successful tour of 18 United States ports, they arrived at their permanent home in Corpus Christi in 1993. The Pinta and Santa Maria are located at the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History. The Nina is currently undergoing repairs at a local shipyard.*
The "shelf life" of these ships, when in water and maintained by a crew of 27, is 10 years. Because that is not the case, and these are 20 years old, they probably will not be around much longer. It will cost more for the repairs than to build new ones.
You can sort of see some of the tools used on board. The rope to measure knots, an hour glass that had to be turned every 30 minutes, an astrolabe for directions, and seen in a close up below, a sounding line or lead line.
In this sense, sounding refers not to sound, but to the word for water or sea. It is very heavy, with markers along the line to indicate depths. The bottom of the lead is concave; tallow was placed on it to bring up sediment from the ocean floor, giving the sailors an indication of where they were.
Natural history and geology were well represented.
This dress and train are encrusted with many, many jewels. I would guess it weighs over 100 pounds. A crown or tiara is located in the left front.
Needlecraft
Laundry
Cary was quite fascinated with this room and its ornate wooden ceiling.
This is the floor of that room and below is
the ceiling. It was originally in Spain, brought here when the building was being torn down.
Cary wanted to write down some things about the room.
I was able to "stitch" four pictures together to get this image!
*http://ccmuseum.com/columbusships.htm
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