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Two months ago, I shared two posts about our visit to the Port Natal Maritime Museum. If you missed my posts, or if you would just like to revisit them for the fun of it, you can find them at Vessels as Seen in the Port Natal Maritime Museum (Part 1) and Market Friday - Vessels as Seen in the Port Natal Maritime Museum (Part 2).
If you can remember, I mentioned that besides getting access to the engine room of the ULUNDI, we weren't able to go on board or get access to any of the boats at the museum. To me, that was quite a disappointment. It's nice to see what it looked like inside or on board via photos...but it's exciting to get on board and experience firsthand what it looked like...to get the feeling of actually being on board the boat...even though it is not going anywhere...lol.
I did some research online and found information that we should indeed be able to go on board. So, I made a commitment to go back at some time and have the whole experience.
Last weekend we had wet, rainy weather and we had to plan carefully.
I kept an eye on my weather app and on Sunday morning it looked like we might have an opportunity to visit the museum.
We entered the premises at the museum through the security gate and went to the reception area which is located in this beautiful, but old little building, getting you in the right mindset and getting the feeling of yester-year...which is what museums are for...
I paid the entrance fee of R10.00 per person, adding up to R20.00 for me and my wife. The USD/ZAR currency pair traded at R17.37 for $1.00 at the time of writing this post. That means I paid $1.15 toward the entrance fee for the two of us.
Stepping out of the reception area...there was the reason for our visit today... The J.R. More tugboat.
The After Deck.
Okay...there is my first lesson for the day... "After Deck". Maybe because English is not my first language, but this sounded strange to me. It sounds like something coming "after" something else...
But in this case, it refers to the deck at the back end of the boat. It forms part of the Main Deck, but it is found at the rear end of the boat.
I only learned about this when we arrived back home and I did some research.
Going on board, you board the boat on the After Deck.
This is the view of the deck as you get onto the boat.
Below the skylight which can be seen in the foreground, is the engine room, which we will be getting to soon.
Walking toward the rear end of the boat...
In the next photo, right at the back of the boat, I found the steering engine house.
Looking toward the front of the boat, I saw the open doors below the skylight, leading to the engine room...guess where I am heading next...lol?
Emergency Steering.
Before descending down into the engine room, you pass the emergency steering as you enter through the door under the skylight.
It's like a room on its own...
There is no way you can see anything from here, so I assume you had to use a "periscope" type of thing as can be seen in my next photo. I did look into it, but couldn't see a thing...
This is something I will be looking into to see if I can learn more about it.
The Engine Room
From the emergency steering area, you enter the engine room.
Looking in...
A view of the engine room as you enter...the "upper level" of the engine room.
In the next photo, the generator is visible.
Going down to the next level in the engine room...
Here we have the "starboard engine"...
And the "port engine"...
While I was moving around here, in very limited space, I realized how hot it was down here...with nothing going on...
Can you imagine how hot it must have been down here with these engines running while being physically active as well...?
This was clearly where a lot of the action took place...making sure that everything was working fine and smoothly.
This is where I would find my way back to the "upper level" of the engine room again.
But before we go back up again...let's go a little more to the front and it seems to be going even a little lower as well...to the boiler room.
The Boiler Room.
It's almost looking mysterious...a narrow passage leading down into darkness...
Approaching the end of the passage... It was quite dark down here at the end. This photo was taken with my cell phone and the light was from the flash of my cell camera when I took this photo.
Entering the boiler room...this is all you see and space becomes a luxury...
Being down here, you have no idea of what is going on outside.
Cabin Area.
Going back to the Main Deck, the After Deck to be exact, we started moving toward the front of the boat.
In the middle of the boat, you reach the Cabin Area.
On both sides of the boat, there is an alleyway that leads through the cabin area to the "Fore Deck". Again...I would have told you it's the "front" deck...lol. But as mentioned before, English is not my first language and so we learn something new every day.
Back to the Cabin Area.
In my next photo, you can see the "Port Alleyway.
It was extremely difficult to get nice photos of the cabins located in this area, as it was closed off and locked in behind perspex windows. I have no problem with it. It is obviously to protect the area and prevent people from entering the cabins and filing with items on display. But taking photos through the perspex was like "mission impossible" to me...
The cabins in this area were all cabins for the engineers on board.
Before you reach the cabins which accommodated the staff though, you find the "Towing Engine" in this area too.
The cable in the Towing Engine.
The Galley (kitchen) in the cabin area.
Toward the front of the alleyway, you find a door that leads to this staircase that will take you down to the crew's accommodation.
But before we go downstairs, let's visit the Officer's Saloon that can be found at the front end of this area.
Some historical photos and news clips regarding the J.R. MORE are also on display in the Officer's Saloon.
And the round reflections you see in the two photos above are not reflections from lights... They were the reflections of the windows behind me. You can see these windows in the first saloon photo. They are looking out over the Fore Deck.
Okay, let's go downstairs to have a look at the crew's accommodation.
My wife didn't join me on all these stair "climbing expeditions", as some of them were a bit challenging to her...lol. I wouldn't recommend you use them as normal stairs either. I used it more in a way you would use a ladder. Going up normally, facing forward. But also facing the stairs when going down as you would when climbing down a ladder.
Anyway, this is inside the crew's accommodation.
You can gain access to the crew's accommodation from the alleyway inside the cabin area, or you can use these stairs which lead to the Fore Deck.
In Conclusion.
Okay, I see this is turning into a long post and I had a ball taking photos on this boat.
I'll save the best for last and share some more photos next week.
Then we'll visit the Fore Deck and the Bridge.
I'll also share some views of the harbor as seen from the J.R. MORE. I'll also share some information about a sinking warship, a mine sweeper, that is docked next to the J.R. MORE.
But for today, this is it, folks!
Thank you for reading my post! I do appreciate it!