Old Ships and Oil

When you travel with a gear head you see more machines that you can count.  This will be a short post as we are heading to Louisiana today.

While in Houston there have been 5 old ships.  I visited one, saw two from afar and declined to climb over two more, enjoying my audio book instead in the car with Raggie.

USS Selma-a concrete ship

One of the ships was the USS Selma, constructed in WWI of concrete as steel was in short supply.  When it was disabled in Tampico, Mexico it was towed to Galveston Bay where a trough was dredged and it has lived there since.  No one could figure out how to repair the concrete ship.

The best ship was the USS Texas, which was built prior to WWI where she served and she also served three important invasions in WWII as well, Normandy, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  

USS Texas-The only WWI AND WWII ship left

We learned that the small brig housed 20 Japanese POW's plus one US Sailor who stole 5 packs of Fig Newtons.  Under the Geneva Convention the POW's ate food from the mess, the naughty sailor had bread and water.  There were only 4-5 very small cells for all those confined.  The sailors' regular  bunks fascinated me.  I am sure that some Federal judge would find such sleeping quarters unconstitutional if used in a prison.

Ocean Star Drilling Rig

Oil is a BIG deal in Texas.  We see endless refineries, oil barges and tanker ships in the channels and waterways of Texas.  An admittedly clever oil industry ploy but interesting attraction is the Ocean Star Drilling Rig Museum.  The museum tells you more that you can take in about how ocean drilling is done.  The Ocean Star was in service in the gulf and is a "jack up rig," one of several types of drilling rigs.  It displays the machinery (my eyes are crossed) and explains how the employees live on board.  You can even see a blow out valve-the thing that failed in the BP Gulf disaster.  

I was so taken with the work that I applied for and was awarded a job on a rig.