Thursday, August 29, 2013

Columbia, Below Decks

When you visit the Columbia sailing ship, you don't have to stay up on deck looking at all that crummy scenery. You can go "below decks"! If you like cramped spaces, then this is for you. It looks OK here, devoid of people, but imagine it full of unwashed sailors. It would be pretty dark down there ordinarily, but for a whale oil lamp. There are tankards on the mast for your serving of grog (add some lime juice so you don't get scurvy), and a sturdy table where you can eat your salt beef and salt cod, lobscouse, spotted dog, hare soup, goose and truffle pies, treacle-dowdy, solomongundy, portable soup, syllabub, and so many other treats.


Carpenter's tools were important on a wooden ship. A storm broke your mast in two? No problem, a little Elmer's glue, some thumbtacks, and some glitter (to make it pretty) - voila! That saw can take off a leg too, if you have a severe cutlass wound. Ropes and grapnels are handy for playing "Batman". If the photographer had only panned a bit to the right, we would be able to see the early wooden version of Ms. Pac Man.



8 comments:

Nanook said...

Major-

Anytime you post images with grapnels, and correctly name them, you've got me eating out of your hand. Now if you could've only included spotted dick along with 'spotted dog', the story would have been most delicious.

Thanks, Major.

Melissa said...

That mug rack is way cool. Now I wast a big round pillar in my kitchen.

“An’ that, me lads an’ lasses, is how we beat the HMS Drake back in 1778. We had a full complement o’ Batman gear, whilst Cap’n Burdon an’ his men were caught with nothin’ but a bunch of Wonder Woman bracelets made o’ broken mugs, holey bedsheets tied ‘round their necks like capes, and all pretendin' like they had some kind of invisible flyin' machine. ‘Twas a sorry sight to see, indeed. Now fetch Granddad another grog and a nice pickled weevil.”

K. Martinez said...

When riding the Columbia, once I come on board I go down below deck and look around. Then once the voyage gets underway, I come up to the deck and look at all the crummy scenery that is Rivers of America. Below deck is definitely built to the scale of Rainbow Ridge.

Nice pics! Thanks, Major.

Major Pepperidge said...

Nanook, I just couldn't bring myself to type "spotted dick". Plus maybe it's the same thing as "spotted dog", only just a different name?

Melissa, I also couldn't bring myself to type "Pickled weevil".

K. Martinez, while I am not crazy about what has been done to the settler's cabin, I still think the journey around the river is pretty nice!

Nanook said...

@Major-

You say dog; I say dick. Funny, doesn't quite have the ring of "you say neither......" They're basically both the same "wonderful tasting" steamed suet pudding. Yummy-!

Melissa said...

I love all the old-timey food names. I did have to look up portable soup. At first I misread it as “potable,” and I was feeling pretty bad for the sailors who got the non-potable soup.

“We had our own problems with the Batman gear, o’ course. Cap’n Jones and the First Officer always settin’ to argue over who’d be Batman and who’d be Robin. Grant ye, grant ye, Cap’n Jones was a full head shorter, and a fine, youthful face had he. And the Lieutentant did cut quite a figure in black. But you don’t go about askin’ the master o’ the vessel to slip into green drawers an’ answer to ‘Boy Wonder,’ no matter if you do give him the longer rope in return, an’ any common sailor’ll tell you that for nothin’.

Ratbag the ship’s cat were always Catwoman, that were a given. Aye, aye, Ratbag were a tomcat, but he didn’t mind none. Secure in ‘is masculinity, were old Ratbag, an’ if it gave ‘im the chance to claw up a face or two and mebbe get an extra ration o’ grog, he were game to put on the little costume and prance about like a gal. I think ‘e liked showin’ us ‘e didn’t need no grapnels like we puny menfolk, neither.”

K. Martinez said...

Major - I was joking in reference to your comment about "crummy scenery". I love the scenery along the Rivers of America. It's full of vintage Disney "mechanized magic". It's out there that I feel transported back to the days of a quieter Disneyland.

I also like the refurb they did with the Mississippi, Columbia, Potomac and Rio Grande represented along the river banks. Yeah, the burning cabin was cool, but things change.

Major Pepperidge said...

Nanook, they might be delicious, but the mention of suet isn't that inspiring! However, I know that it can be added to all kinds of rich edibles.

Melissa, the portable soup was a potent potable.

K. Martinez, I still remember riding the Twain when my niece was 8 years old; she knew that the moose was a fake, that the deer was a fake, but when she saw the Shaman telling tales, she said, "That's real!".