Underwater

   Well - first the airforce and now the navy.
   The weekend of June 1st and 2nd were Armed Forces days in Spain. Most military establishments put on some sort of show or exhibition, but what really caught our eye was a trip aboard the submarine Tramontana and the destroyer Cristobal Colon, which were to be docked in the cruise ship port in Cartagena.
   Saturday was not possible due to the wedding of a neighbours daughter, so we set off on Sunday. We were committed to do a 15km bike ride on Sunday morning, but due to it being open to all ages, there were 3 and 4 year olds participating. We obviously went at the speed of the slowest, which meant we had done approx 3kms in 40 mins.
   The bus to Cartagena leaves at 1:00pm and 3:00pm and takes 1.5 hours. Arriving at 4:30pm would be cutting it a bit fine to see everything we wanted, so we cut and run from the cycle ride and got the 1:00pm bus.
   What a good job we did. The tours started again at 4:00pm, and we expected to queue, but boy what a queue!!
   We stood in line for 90 mins about 50 people back from the front, and by the time it opened (limited numbers at a time on the sub) the queue behind us was at least 200 people.

To the hatch

   When we got to the front, we were with a group of 10 people who walked along the top of the sub to a hatch.

Plans - secret?

Down the hatch

   Down a ladder to a very very small space - just one narrow corridor with rooms either side for cooking, washing, sleeping and eating. Farther down the corridor was the main control room and then the torpedo bay. We could see through the grilles in the floor that there was another level below us for the engines and stores.

Dining room

Bedroom

Kitchen

Up periscope

The business end

Torpedoes and beds

Don't pull this handle!!

    If you were over 5'10" tall you were in for some serious head trauma in the sub - very low and quite claustrophobic, and we were still on the surface.Glad we didn't see this piece of news before we went down the hatch, and the latest news is that the new class of sub is running late, so the Tramontana is having a mega €30 million re-fit.

Don't like the look of that welding

   After exiting through the same hatch we decided not to queue for the destroyer - again it looked like 300+ people in the queue. Instead we  looked at the fixed displays of military equipment on the quayside which was very interesting - things you don't normally get to see.

   A great day out to see something really unusual - we're just waiting for an invite from the army now!!

Submariner first class

Look at those queues

All photos of the day can be viewed here