Gosport and Portsmouth(January 20, 2008)

On Sunday, the MacKays and I went to Gosport and Portsmouth.  They wanted to take me to go on the ferry that takes you from Gosport to Portsmouth, across the Portsmouth harbour which is famous for being the Royal Navy's harbour.  On the Portsmouth side of the harbour, the Spinnaker Tower rises into the air 170 meters -- not even in the competition to be the tallest tower in the world -- easily surpassed by the second tallest, the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 553.33 meters.  However, the tower is the tallest accessible structure -- outside of London -- in the United Kingdom.

The tower was originally named the Portsmouth Millennium Tower, unfortunately, delays made it five years too late and so it was renamed Spinnaker.

The tower has three viewing decks.  The first deck has a section of that is glass.  It allows you to walk across so you can look down 100 meters straight down to the bottom of the tower.  All three decks look out across the harbour, allowing views of many landmarks on clear days.  The second viewing deck is 105 meters and the Crow's Nest is 110 meters.

This picture is from the first viewing deck of the tower.  The HMS Warrior sits in the harbour permanently as a museum ship.  It is famous as the first iron-hulled, armour-plated warship.  Completed in October 1861, it had a short life as a warship with only 21 years and 6 months of service before being withdrawn in May 1883 because of the fast-moving upgrades in technology. 

Taken from the Crow's nest of the Spinnaker Tower, this picture of the famous warship, HMS Victory, isn't as clear as I would have liked.  This ship is also a permanently docked, museum ship in the Portsmouth harbour.  Sailed by many, the most famous would probably be Lord Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805.

After being up the tower, we went back down to the outdoor shopping center at the base of the tower.  There were some entertainers in the walkways of the shopping center, one with a glass ball that he rolled up and down his arms and on his hands where his hands were moving but the ball seemed to stay in one place.  A little further along, we came to a man doing balloon animals and flowers.  We stopped and he made the flower and butterfly that Jess is holding in the picture.