Wednesday

Today got off to a good start. I took a parcel of stuff to the local Post Office, politely asked if I could send all or some, depending on the weight and the price, to Australia, and, instead of having my head bitten off rudely as by the lady in W83 , the lady could not have been more helpful. Today’s trivia – 4lb is the magical cutoff. A fraction under 4 lb cost $30, a fraction over would have cost $48. Needless to say, I sent a fraction under.

Then I caught a train and then ferry to the Charleston Naval Yards to go on a tour of USS Constitution. I was dressed in my good wet weather gear, but tours do not run in the rain. Bother. I asked why and was told that visitors rarely come dressed to stand in the rain. We could wander round the boat and there were sailors who would answer questions. Supposedly they were serving sailors in the US navy. They all looked about 15 years old to me and were none to keen to offer help. One I talked to said they were posted there for 2 years after boot camp and that one day in 4 they were on tourist duty.

USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship afloat but nowadays she has only one outing a year on July 4 – and that with the aid of a tugboat to reverse her position on the pier so she weathers evenly. She was built in the late 1700’s and was apparently in 42 battles and never lost. At the waterline her hull is 63cm thick and was able to withstand huge cannonballs – which is why she was nicknamed Ironsides. I was listening to a guy from Georgia asking about the timber. The hull is made of a layer of live oak which is 5 times denser than most sandwiched between 2 pieces of another type of oak. I was struggling with the Georgian accent and the speed of the sailor’s speech and thought I have misheard and made some goofy comment about how come it was live, surely it had to be dead. What was the word they were saying? Live oak is a type of oak and is the official state tree of Georgia - trivia number 2 for today. There is another boat – a WW2 destroyer that I could have looked at , but I thought not. I remembered last night about reading all the Hornblower books as a kid. He would have sailed on very similar boats.

I had a nice lunch – big bowl of seafood and came back to my apartment. I have had a big problem this afternoon as I did about 4 days ago. It is nice to have a washing machine and not have to wash by hand every item of clothing as soon as it is dirty ( I travel very lightly – 2 trousers – 1 on and 1 off, 2 shirts , plus one to move places in, minimal everything else – thermal underwear for the cold doubles as sleepwear etc) However, it requires a lot of coordination to have something suitable to wear to go along the corridor, round the bend, along another corridor to the laundry room holding the dirty washing. I donot think a towel is enough.