January 30th, 2014

Spent a great day with Susan, and Joan's brother Vernon.  Joan was sick and couldn't come with us :(
We went to the sailing boat, the Elissa - well known in Galaveston's history. Here's a little blurb about this tall ship:
Elissa is a three-masted, iron-hulled sailing ship built in 1877 in Aberdeen, Scotland by Alexander Hall & Company. She carries nineteen sails covering over one-quarter of an acre in surface area. Tall ships are classified by the configuration of their sailing rig. In ELISSA's case, she is a "barque" because she carries square and fore-and-aft sails on her fore and mainmasts, but only fore-and-aft sails on her mizzenmast. From her stern to the tip of her jibboom she measures 205 feet. Her height is 99 feet, 9 inches at the main mast and she displaces about 620 tons at her current ballast.

We climbed all over and around and inside the Elissa, which is a floating museum now - it was fascinating! Gorgeous wood everywhere, and a real historical slice!

Susan and Vern at the gangway

Now that is rope!

Original bunks for the sailors

Cool masts!

The original bell

Vern at the wheel

I watched this woman climbing up the ropes to do some repairs 

Whew!

No problemo!

Beautiful wood

The Elissa from another boat

Still trying to get the whole ship in one shot

These two are replicas of shrimp boats, in the Elyssa museum. I can see shrimp boats from the window of my rv sometimes, and often driving down Seawall Blvd.  Of course, the real things are not all shiny and colourful . . . 

After inspecting the Elissa - and visiting the museum on the dock, too - we took a tour of the harbour on a little tour boat.  We saw dolphins following a few shrimp boats - and a fascinating concrete boat:

The Selma, a 7500 ton reinforced concrete tanker built in Mobile, Alabama, was launched on June 28, 1919. She was one of several concrete ships conceived and designed during World War 1. Construction was not completed until the war ended. She had a length 420 ft., a beam of 54 ft. and a draft with full cargo of 26 ft.. Her loaded displacement was 13,000 tons. This vessel marked the first use of shale aggregate expanded in rotary kilns for lightweight structural concrete.

A channel 1,500 ft. long and 25 ft. deep was dug to a point just off Galveston near Pelican Island's eastern shoreline. After being stripped of all valuable equipment, on March 9, 1922 she was towed out to her final berth, and laid to rest. This left the hull partly submerged, although awash when seas were rough.

The Selma has over the years been object of many failed plans to convert her for use as a fishing pier, pleasure resort and oyster farm. Long a source of curiosity and local legend, she remains important to concrete and academic experts as an object of study of her construction and durability following decades of exposure to marine conditions.

The Selma is still quite visible today from the historic marker on Pelican Island and has become an interesting artifact to be viewed by the locals and visitor tourists alike. Although she will never sail again, she has been proudly resurrected by Daniels and other proud Texans who believe she lives on in spirit.

This was really cool to see!!

The rest of the tour was awesome, too - just being on the water, seeing pelicans and shrimp boats and dolphins was soo much fun!

Check out the pelicans in these two photos

Trying to capture the dophins, but I don't think I succeeded!

We finished off the day by showing Vern a few of the famous tree sculptures - always great to see these. Carved from the trunks of spreading red oak trees demolished by Hurricane Ike in 2008, these sculptures sit in the yards of residents of the historical district of downtown Galveston.