Dover -- Dover Castle (Part 2 of 2)

 

I promise our day off tours were about more than just "Castles and Cathedrals" in every port as so many European towns revolved around these two. We were encouraged to make an exception for Dover Castle because it had so many layers of history, and, we were told, was more reconstructed and furnished inside so we'd get a better idea of how people lived. It was a steep hike from the port to get to the headland above the town; we left extra time so we wouldn't be tired before we even got there!

The tower that guards the entry to the grounds.

(Reconstructed) drawbridge.

Here's a bit of the historic layering I mentioned. The somewhat lumpy structure on the right is a Roman pharos, or lighthouse. The building next to it is much newer, a Saxon church "only" about 1000 years old. Elsewhere on the castle grounds are brick buildings built as officers' barracks about 200 years ago, that were used right up into WWII.

Following are a set of photos of various parts of the main castle. The contrast between the elaborate living areas of the nobility and the plain wooden structures for the working classes was quite dramatic. The paint colours were interesting, and, we were told, accurate. Remember that back in the day they couldn't just have any colour they wanted; the dyes had to come from plants or minerals in the natural world. Although the blue and green looked somewhat flat, in historic times they would have some sparkle. The blue -- royal blue -- was actually made of crushed lapis lazuli stone from Afghanistan. The semiprecious mineral would have flecks of pyrite in it, so when crushed it would have had a glittery shine. Ditto the green, that would have come from malachite.

drawbridge mechanism

We had to do the tourist thing in the throne room. 

Lots of secret passageways

It's easy to visualize the castle overlooking and protecting the harbour and the town below

an elegant bedchamber

A more humble room, storage, and jugs and bowls

part of the kitchens below

part of the main hall

where the nobility could sleep and relax. Note again the red, blue, and green paint.

Kitchens

Even more kitchens and food and beer storage.

Beer brewing medieval style

Another section of the castle grounds

And an older section of the grounds

A chunk of lapis (from Wikipedia article linked above). I inherited a necklace of lapis beads from my mother and they're beautiful; can't really imagine crushing these sparkly stones to powder. 

Dover -- Lifeboats and WWII Tunnels (Part 1 of 2)

 

We docked in busy Dover in a secure zone at the commercial port, which ended up creating some logistical challenges for us to bring visitors aboard as the area wasn't open to the general public. A benefit for us was that after hours it was the exact inverse of Bristol, where we had to raise the passarella at night to keep drunks from the beer garden from climbing aboard. Here, we barely needed a night watch at all, as the entire dock was secured by port authority. Our neighbours here were the RNLI, the lifeboat service. 

Dover is the closest port in the UK to the mainland, and the lifeboat station here is a busy one. In recent years they have been faced with increasing numbers of migrants crossing the channel. Their policy is that they don't judge or decide who is "worthy" of rescue; they merely save every single one they can, bring them ashore and let the authorities sort them out later. Most of the days our ship was docked in Dover, we saw the RNLI head out on one or more rescues. Sometimes they arranged to be met by immigration authorities as they returned to the dock with survivors aboard. One day I remember well, the crews came back wet, silent, and stone-faced. We didn't ask for details. 

Some excerpts from an informational plaque at the small RNLI visitor center at the head of the dock:

"Why Dover's volunteers are dedicated to saving every one: [Since] 2018, greater numbers of small boats began crossing the Channel from France to the UK. Many of these inflatable boats are unseaworthy and overloaded, and break apart or suffer engine failure mid-Channel. It's rare for anyone onboard to hold any maritime or navigational knowledge." 

"The Dover Strait is the wrold's busiest shipping lane. Around 500-600 ships a day pass through the narrow waters between the UK and France. These ships tower over the small boats and are unable to stop or change course if they find one in their path."

"Rescue without question: This issue has divided opinion, as it is linked to wider debates around immigration and related government policies. The RNLI is independednt of government and funded by donations from generous supporters of our mission. We have no influence over the circumstances that bring people to make thse crossings, nor do we engage in political debate around them. Our crews simply respond when tasked to save lives and will continue to do so."

Mannequin in the RNLI information center. I do visualize these guys as slightly larger-than-life. (For the record, I'm about 5'8" in those shoes.)

 

The secure gate leading to the dock. 

Closer view of the gate. The spiky balls around it sort of remind me of the cartoon illustration of covid germs from 2020, but they're actually a miniature version of harbour chain. It would be laid on the bottom of the channel or entry to the port in peaceful times. If an enemy threatened, they would raise the chain (like closing the "gate" across the entry). The spikes would pierce the wooden hulls of approaching enemy ships. Now it's just maritime decor.

One of the RNLI rescue boats.

Like nearby Ramsgate, the chalk cliffs here held tunnels that were important to WWII defense. The tunnels we visited in Ramsgate the previous summer, though, held the stories of ordinary civilians taking shelter within. One set of the tunnels here were used for strategic command, another for a secure hospital. The Germans knew these existed, but not what went on inside ... and like the HMS Victory in Portsmouth, decided not to bomb them because they might want to use these structures for themselves "after they won."

Entry to the upper tunnel complex

Conference table

State of the art secure communications, WWII-style.

Passage: Portsmouth to Dover

 

Dover was our final port in England before our much-anticipated crossing to mainland Europe and the two big boat festivals. I had very much enjoyed our visit to nearby Ramsgate last summer so was curious to see how this town would work out. We had read that it was a much bigger commercial port, and also had a historic castle to explore. 

Screenshot of my weather app showing near hurricane-force winds to the north.

Our departure from Portsmouth was delayed by a day due to this very nasty weather system. Glad we waited, now we have blue skies and good sailing winds. This particular sail is the "velacho;" the foreward top sail. We're all given a line drawing of the ship to memorize that has the names of ship parts in English and Spanish; many of these words are far to obscure for google translate! And I can understand basic maritime commands like "make that line fast;" "turn the ship 10 degrees to starboard;" or "look out for the fishing boat there." Other than that, though, my command of the language is more basic, insufficient for the kind of conversations that help pass the time on the midnight watch. Sometimes my confusion about words can be pretty funny: "goleta" is the word for a schooner, and "galleta" is the word for a cookie. So guess who was trying to explain the beautiful vessel Adventurer, but told a shipmate that we represented a 48-foot cookie at a maritime festival in June before coming to the Galeon? 

My view of the "velacho;" from the quarterdeck. 

These channel markings don’t show numbers on them, they have names. This particular one is “Horse Elbow.” I want to know the story behind it. Also, red and green sides of the channel are reversed compared to the way they are in the US (just like driving on the left). Messes with my brain!

I see France off the starboard rail and England off the port rail, so we must be approaching Dover. Pic is Jaye being interviewed for a series about the range of ships that come into the port. Interviews when one is sleep deprived are always interesting.

Coming into Dover: view of the famous white cliffs. They really blaze in the morning sunlight.

Fire boat displaying for our welcome.

Crew members readying the "defensas" (fenders). They're huge, heavy, and effective. 

Closer view of the fire boat.

Dover Castle on the hill -- our planned destination for our first day off. We work all weekends, and it's actually kind of nice that therefore our days off tend to be weekdays where tourist attractions like this one are less crowded.

A map of smoke from Canadian wildfires, that made it all the way to England! 

Portsmouth -- The Mary Rose (Part 2 of 2)

 Henry VIII's favourite warship, the Mary Rose, sank just outside of Portsmouth Harbour about 150 years before the time period of our ship. The vessel was found, salvaged, and more recently the hull was raised and established in a museum here. The sinking was just shallow enough to be easy to retrieve, and the water was just cold enough to preserve the vessel and its artifacts extremely well. 

As has become our norm, we arranged reciprocal visiting privileges: their staff could visit our ship for free, and we could visit theirs. Of course we took advantage of that; dedicating an entire day. It was absolutely fascinating and my photos really don't do it justice. Lots more info on their website here: History of the Mary Rose. But in my conversations with the staff about their ship and ours, what really stood out to me was this: each of us appreciated the other's context. The staff at the museum there were envious of us because we actually got to walk on the decks of our ship and genuinely **feel** its scale and touch things, while we were envious of them because their items were genuinely **old** and not just replica. 

Maybe it looked a bit like this?

In a carefully climate-controlled display room, the actual 500 year old hull.

cannon

blocks

tools, shoes, other artifacts

I had never seen anything quite like this tide calculator of the era. It was used to help the pilot estimate the time of high water by taking a bearing on the moon, and is keyed to a specific port. This part of England has rather large tidal ranges so it would be very useful. It's oval shaped and in raised relief so it could be used by touch alone ... very handy on a dark night!  

A somewhat more modern -- but still quite old! -- sundial compass.

  

The bookstore attached to the museum had a huge selection of books about the period, but also t-shirts and mugs ... and this hysterical collection of "King Henry" and "Anne Boleyn" rubber ducks!

Just clowning around with Henry's statue at the gate.