What a day we had!
The vessel is, in and of itself impressive.
It is 887long, 108 feet wide and carries a draft of 37 feet when fully loaded.
The 16" fifty caliber guns just give you a sense of awe when you look at them and the projectiles they fired.
The projectiles and propellant bags were handled and loaded individually!
The maximum range recorded by a 16" shell was fired by the Iowa at 26.9 miles in 1989 .
The tour is getting better, I was on board about a year ago and now they have it better organized with more people to describe what it is you are looking at.
The only problem we encountered was in the bar, the service was very slow and there were not too many other customers.
This was one of the names applied to the Iowa, the other was the battleship of presidents.
Here is a picture of Ronald and Nancy Reagan on board in 1984.
Of course the president who was remembered most for his time spent on board was F.D.R.
He travelled on the Iowa from the east coast to the Yalta conference and during his time on board certain accommodations for his disability had to be made. For example the shower in the captains quarters was removed and replace with a bath tub. The Iowa was the only ship in the fleet to have a bathtub.
We followed the visit with a trip to Point Fermin to see the light house and another famous landmark!
We headed back over the Vincent Thomas bridge to Long Beach, even the bridge itself is an impressive sight. Driving over it you can see the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles spread beneath you.
A quick look around near the Queen Mary and then back to HB for a little R&R.
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