Cutty Sark

I was so sad that to hear this morning about the near loss of the Cutty Sark in a fire. I've always been interested in historic navel vessels and this is one of the few that I have actually seen and touched. My sister and I were in London in the Fall of 1995 (just before I started losing my vision) and were trying to get to the Royal Observatory (Greenwich mean time). We learned to ask folks and bus drivers for the scenic route. The bus driver dropped us off at a weird black, round thing and said 'go through there'. We went in. There was an elevator. Ok.. this is weird. Middle of nowhere and there is an elevator. A really big one, easily holding 30 people. Elevator opens and there's a guy there. Turns out that you walk UNDER the Thames River from here. So, we go 4 or 5 stories down and sure enough. A very long tunnel (anybody who has been to Logan airport in Boston can visualize this including the occasional leaks of water). So, we walked and walked and then there was another manned elevator to bring us up. On the other side was the Cutty Sark in drydock. It was closed, so we never got to go on it. But I did touch it! So, hopefully they will be able to fix her. She was a beauty.

Lots of folks are providing their personal photos of the Cutty Sark at the link below.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6676791.stm

[edited to add] Here's a 2 links to photos of the Greenwich foot tunnel that we went through. Apparently, there are more foot tunnels than this!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_foot_tunnel
http://www.greenwich-guide.org.uk/tunnel.htm

Royal Observatory/Greenwich stuff (pronounced 'Gren itch')
http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/

Other ships I've been on: USS Massachusetts, USS Missouri, USS Constitution (Old Ironsides), USS Bowfin (sub), and seen, but not touched USS Arizona.

To keep this craft related, here's the quilt that I was working on while in London (it was done section-by-section by hand so it was portable. This is my very first completed bed quilt. I should redo the photo. I had a poor quality digital at the time. Anyway, have a great day!