The 'Liberty' Ships

Docked at the San Francisco harbour is a 'Liberty' ship - an armed merchant ship used in the Second World War. There is a very interesting story behind the building of these vessels. In the early years of the Second World War there were dark days for Britain - cut off from Europe by Nazi Germany, all food, clothing, materials and oil had to be imported across the Atlantic. Seas on which deadly German battleships and U-boat submarines operated. In 1941 Britain and her allies lost 1,200 ships to enemy actions, and in 1942, 1,600 ships were sunk which nearly brought Britain to her knees.

When the USA entered the war, an immediate need was to replace all the lost merchant ships, so as to ferry both civilian and military cargoes to Britain and North Africa.

The USA applied its industrial might to this problem and started to build merchant ships using the advanced techniques that Henry Ford introduced to the manufacture of cars - the production line.

Vast shipbuildng yards were created where 10 ships could be built at the same time, with the workforce specializing in the same work on each. Utilizing a simple design (a British design of 1879) and prefabrication, a 'Liberty' ship could be built in 60 days! There is a fantastic picture of the yard of the ships being built - all a different stages of construction from keel (the bottom of the ship) to the superstructure (the top of the ship) as part of a huge assembly line.
There were 16 shipbuilding yards, and in total they produced 2,710 'Liberty' ships in WWII. An astonishing number.
The ship at San Francisco is called the "SS Jeremiah o'Brien" and is now one of the only two surviving Liberty ships.

Scenes from San Francisco - Part One

Hi, you know people are a healthy bunch in California - we have seen joggers, cyclists (more than you would expect in such a hilly city) and roller bladers. The sight that amused me was a roller blader with an ice hockey stick, skating down the road waving his stick at an imaginary puck making his power plays, totally oblivious to anything else. It's probably just a normal sight in this city.

And how about the man with a baby that boarded a fairly full bus, causing the bus driver to stand up, and shout that the assembled passengers "I would like someone to offer this man with a baby a seat please". Someone duly did, but perhaps not noting that, with baby in one hand, he was clutching a skate board in the other ???

The Governator!

We have talked about the current Governor of California

- remember this is an important person - California has a population and a wealth that puts it (if it were a seperate country) in the top 10 in the world.

Well, on our first day in San Francisco, we met him!

He is, of course, Arnold Schwarnegger, and we usually think of him as looking lke the picture on the left. In reality, he looks like this:
No-one messes with the Governor, even if he does drink latte... we've outside the Ferry Building, taking a photo of the clock tower when a guy in a smart sheepskin coat approaches us and asks : "are we tourists?". The answer is obvious. "The Governor will be leaving the building in a few minutes". Only then do we notice the Hummies with blacked out windows at the kerb.
Sure enough, he emerges a few minutes later, surrounded by his entourage of mean looking blokes in dark suits and even darker shades.

Arnie decides to do an impromptu walkabout into the public part of the Ferry Building, much to the intense interest of the locals (and two English tourists).

He walks fast, is surprisingly not very tall, and you still won't mess with him. Then he causes total chaos by going into the coffee shop to get a drink - we didn't hang around to see if, like royalty, he doesn't carry any cash.

Bizarre Phenomenon Observed!

Hi, Professor Madfish here. I would like to report a scientific curiosity which happened on the flight to San Francisco.

Water in small bottles were provided on the flight, and I kept an empty one for the time in San Francisco. The bottle was empty and the lid firmly on.

Imagine my surprise when, in the hotel, unpacking, the bottle was twisted and misshappen! See the picture on the left. Weird.

One other fact to relate - when I opened the bottle, the plastic went back to its usual (square) shape.

Anybody got any idea what is going on here??

Geography Quiz No.2

We're in San Francisco, California, in the USA! The city is on the southern headland of a massive bay - see the aerial picture above. There are three bridges - one north-south across the headlands, one across the northern pat of the bay, and the third from San Francisco across the bay.
The Geography Quiz question is: which one is the famous Golden Gate Bridge??

Answer next time - have fun !

Aircraft data and flight info

Attention, all Techoboys and GeekGirls, information about the aircraft we flew in and the route we took to San Francisco follows:
The aircraft was a Boeing 747-800 (one of the 'stretch' jumbos that has a capacity of 416 passengers), mainly flying at a height of 38000 feet (11000 metres) and a ground speed of 550mph. This plane was the largest commercial passenger aircraft before the new Airbus A380 'SuperJumbo' came into service. For info (and a picture), please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747.

The flight route to San Francisco was north over Scotland, to Iceland, then to Greenland crossing into Canada north of Hudson Bay. Over Canada, we crossed directly over the Great Slave Lake, which is north of Edmonton, Alberta. [It was about here that we waved to our helicopter friend, Stuart, who is currently based in White Court, Alberta]. Passing close to Vancouver, the plane then turned south for San Francisco.

Leg 1 : London to San Francisco : 5358 miles

Wow! Okay, first flight; London Heathrow to San Francisco; 11 hours and 5358 miles. Notice that to get to the west coast of America, we fly north over Scotland. Why is that?? Also we depart at 13:45 (quarter to two in the afternoon) but arrive at 17:05 (five past five) - a duration of only 3 hours for a 11 hour flight. Why is that??

Carolyn is a mistress!

Yes, after a year studing full-time, Carolyn was awarded her Master Degree in History yesterday. In view of political correctness, I prefer 'Mistress' to 'Master':The degree was made up of a series of assignments (about 40% of the marks) and Carolyn did diverse subjects such as The Crusades and White Supremacy in southern states of America. The dissertation ( remaining 60% of the marks) was a 20,000 word essay of an original historical research - Carolyn's subject was the Leicester Borough Jail 1845-1860. Carolyn received a 'Merit' grade (middle between a 'Pass' grade and a 'Distinction').

Well done, Jette!

California here we come

As you know, the first destination is San Francisco in the state of California, USA.

All sorts of trivial, yet bizarrely intriguing, information about the "Golden State" can be found on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California

which has plenty of other links to other related pages (including the name of the State governor).

Answer to Geography Quiz No.1

Hi, there, Quiz Master here. Well the first question in our global geography quiz was really easy - is San Francisco on the western side of America or on the eastern side?

The answer, is, of course, the western side, in the state of California.

California is the third largest U.S. state by land area; yet the most populous state with 36 million inhabitants. Blimey, that's bigger than some countries. Ok, a bonus question for the keenies amongst you: Who is the governor of California at the moment? Question No.2 coming up tomorrow - remember to log on to find out!

Russell and the Chaps

We have had several enquiries asking whether Russell and the rest of the menagerie are coming with us round the world. Well, it would have been nice, but the logistics of organizing all the various visas, permissions to cross borders, etc, well it was going to be an absolute nightmare. And remember the last time Russell went to Europe and Interpol got really interested and was asking all those questions??? I think there must be something shady in Russell's past so this time we are not taking them on holiday.

Instead, he and the other chaps are staying with their Nanna for the duration of the trip; Mum has had to get extra insurance (just in case, you understand), but hopefully everyone will be good (for a change).

Geography Quiz Question No.1

Hi, well, this is the educational part of the blog. Geography - uuurgh! - turgid and boring when sitting in the classroom perhaps; but not when you are actually there and seeing it with your own eyes!

So, just for fun, try our quiz questions - you may know the answer straight away or you may have to look it up (using the Google Earth magic, perhaps). We will give you the answer the next time we post an entry on this blog.

Right, an easy one to start off with. Question 1 :

The first leg of our journey is from Heathrow, London to San Francisco, USA. Is San Francisco on the eastern side of America or the western side?

Answer next time. Phil.

Adventure into the unknown!

This Sunday we are off on our BIG TRIP - there are so many places to see, things to do and people (in New Zealand) to meet. And with so many good times ahead there will be some not so good times as well. But we are bravely looking forward to the adventure together.

Your mission is....Google Earth

Phil here, listen in.... If you want to accept this mission to follow us around the world over the next two months, I strongly recommend installing Google Earth on your computer. It's free, and just an amazing piece of software. Go to:

http://earth.google.com/

to learn all about it and to download it. That's all.... this blog entry will self destruct in 5 seconds... (cue mission impossible theme....).