The Mariners’ Museum

"Fun with the Family"

This museum explores the sea’s use for transportation, warfare, food, and pleasure. Perhaps the museum’s most celebrated exhibit is the USS Monitor. In 2001 the Mariners’ Museum, working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), recovered parts of the Civil War ironclad Monitor, which rested 16 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, at 240 feet below sea level. In March 2007 the museum opened the USS Monitor Center. The facility uses original documents, artifacts, and hands-on exhibits to detail the USS Monitor’s history and importance as well as the conservation and science required to rescue the Monitor. Kids can maneuver a sailing frigate and experience aspects of the Battle of Hampton Roads at the “battle theater.”
 
In other galleries, examine miniature and handcrafted ship models, carved figureheads, scrimshaw, maritime paintings, and working steam engines. Favorites with kids include the Age of Exploration Gallery with its hands-on replicas of early maps and navigational tools and its fifteen short videos; the Crabtree Collection of Miniature Ships’ sixteen detailed miniatures; the Great Hall of Steam’s history of steamships (plus an exhibit on the HMS Titanic); the Chesapeake Bay Gallery, which details this body of water’s history and has an exhibit on shipbuilding (plus interactive computer games). A permanent exhibit on U.S. Navy history uses lively audiovisual displays to explore the history of sea power in Defending the Seas, from sailing ships to nuclear-powered submarines.
 
Allow time to enjoy the museum’s park like setting on 550 acres. You can rent boats, picnic, and walk a 5-mile-long trail that surrounds Lake Maury. Children can get a free backpack (you have to leave your ID at the desk), which contains paper for leaf rubbing, water-testing kits, a bird book, binoculars, and a magnifying glass. Near the picnic tables there are kid-sized reproductions of ships that welcome crawlers.