Well today Chris and I mostly took an easy day. We walked around darling harbor a bit more, and went and visited the maritime museum for free, well the exhibits were free, the
submarine, the warship and a replica of captain Cook’s “Endeavour” were not, much to our disappointment,
so we didn’t get to stand on them, but we did get some nice pictures from the dock and bridge. 
I learned a lot today about Australia’s history, I was reminded that cook explored and mapped the East coast of Australia, but that was the ship’s secret mission. It’s true mission was on behalf of the London observatory, there was a celestial event going on in that, in which Venus passes between us and the sun, and they needed like 17 observatories around the world in order to determine how far the earth is from the sun. So they petitioned King George for a ship so that they could send someone down here and set up a temporary observatory to measure the event. Mapping Australia was a free bonus, oh, and the Endeavour ran aground on a reef while mapping and Cook ordered 6 cannons and come ballast bars to be thrown overboard in hopes of loosening the ship, which indeed did work. Archeologists actually recovered all the cannons and ballast bars, and they are on display in several museums around Australia and also one in London.
I also learned a lot about Australia’s involvement in the fight for the Pacific. After Japan entered the war and took Hong Kong, Australia was kind of on its own for a while. The British sent over force Z (Churchill sent over a couple of big battle ships including 2 battle cruisers, one of whom was the flagship “The Prince Of Whales”) to intimidate the Japanese into backing off (The Japanese instead decided to bomb them with airplanes and successfully sunk both battle cruisers in a matter of minutes, forcing Force Z to flee, tails between their legs) instead the British pulled out of the pacific leaving Australia on it’s own, at least until the Americans could re-group. The Japanese actually sunk a couple of ships in Sydney harbor with their mini subs, including one RAN (Royal Australian Navy) ship. I also learned that in quite a few of the naval battles that occurred in the Pacific was a combination of both American and Australian ships fighting side by side. In fact the Americans named one of their new ships after one of the Australian vessels that were lost while fighting side by side.
Oh and the second version of the battleship HMAS Sydney was sunk by a German battle ship, can’t remember which one right now. Now we get to the aircraft Carrier HMAS Melbourne or as I like to call her “The Rammer”. While on maneuvers in the 60’s I think she accidentally ran over HMAS Voyager, cutting it in 2 and killing 93 men. Three inquiries later, they never did find the answer, but a couple of years later it ran over another ship, this time an American battleship killing 73 men. I don’t know about you, but I would be asking to revoke the captain’s driver’s license.
By the way Chris finally received his luggage today, and everything was there, though apparently it went through Hawaii, I think I was right, it must have been drunk and boarded the wrong plane. Well, I am off for the evening, and I am hoping to get my computer problems figured out soon.
submarine, the warship and a replica of captain Cook’s “Endeavour” were not, much to our disappointment, so we didn’t get to stand on them, but we did get some nice pictures from the dock and bridge. I learned a lot today about Australia’s history, I was reminded that cook explored and mapped the East coast of Australia, but that was the ship’s secret mission. It’s true mission was on behalf of the London observatory, there was a celestial event going on in that, in which Venus passes between us and the sun, and they needed like 17 observatories around the world in order to determine how far the earth is from the sun. So they petitioned King George for a ship so that they could send someone down here and set up a temporary observatory to measure the event. Mapping Australia was a free bonus, oh, and the Endeavour ran aground on a reef while mapping and Cook ordered 6 cannons and come ballast bars to be thrown overboard in hopes of loosening the ship, which indeed did work. Archeologists actually recovered all the cannons and ballast bars, and they are on display in several museums around Australia and also one in London.
I also learned a lot about Australia’s involvement in the fight for the Pacific. After Japan entered the war and took Hong Kong, Australia was kind of on its own for a while. The British sent over force Z (Churchill sent over a couple of big battle ships including 2 battle cruisers, one of whom was the flagship “The Prince Of Whales”) to intimidate the Japanese into backing off (The Japanese instead decided to bomb them with airplanes and successfully sunk both battle cruisers in a matter of minutes, forcing Force Z to flee, tails between their legs) instead the British pulled out of the pacific leaving Australia on it’s own, at least until the Americans could re-group. The Japanese actually sunk a couple of ships in Sydney harbor with their mini subs, including one RAN (Royal Australian Navy) ship. I also learned that in quite a few of the naval battles that occurred in the Pacific was a combination of both American and Australian ships fighting side by side. In fact the Americans named one of their new ships after one of the Australian vessels that were lost while fighting side by side.
Oh and the second version of the battleship HMAS Sydney was sunk by a German battle ship, can’t remember which one right now. Now we get to the aircraft Carrier HMAS Melbourne or as I like to call her “The Rammer”. While on maneuvers in the 60’s I think she accidentally ran over HMAS Voyager, cutting it in 2 and killing 93 men. Three inquiries later, they never did find the answer, but a couple of years later it ran over another ship, this time an American battleship killing 73 men. I don’t know about you, but I would be asking to revoke the captain’s driver’s license.
By the way Chris finally received his luggage today, and everything was there, though apparently it went through Hawaii, I think I was right, it must have been drunk and boarded the wrong plane. Well, I am off for the evening, and I am hoping to get my computer problems figured out soon.
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