Glass Bottom Boat Ride

On Sunday morning (August 3rd), we decided to take a glass bottom boat ride out to near the Christ of the Abyss statue to see the area where Mom was laid to rest.
As we walked the docks, headed over to the glass-bottomed boat, we came across the original boat that was used in the filmimg of the movie, "The African Queen".

The sign does indeed verify that this is the very boat we saw in action in the movie.

The African Queen is a steel-hulled open decked boat with a steam boiler used as the power source. I remember watching Humphrey Bogart kick the boiler because it might blow up.

Humphrey Bogart, in character as Charlie Allnut said; "Kickin' it starts it workin' again. I gotta act fast 'cause one of my boys dropped a screwdriver down the safety valve...If I was to let the engine die goin' down the rapid, we'd be goners...You know, I'm gonna do that [fix it] one of these days. The only reason I ain't done it up to now is that I kinda like kickin' it. She's all I've got."

The front view. At first glance, the boat seems to be a mock-up of the original as used in the movie, but after careful research we have found that this is indeed one of two identical steam-powered boats as used in the movie. The second one, of course, was lost when it was used to blow up the patrol vessel Louisa in the movie.

Further research has indicated that the owner whom was responsible for taking the African Queen on tour around the world to provide rides for her fans, has since passed away. As such, she now languishes on her davits as her new owners (from what I can tell, that would be the owner of the gift shop inside of the Holiday Inn and the owner of the glass-bottomed boat located next to her).

Unfortunately, she hasn't seen much kindness or use of late, and from what I can gather, has not taken passengers in a while. Such a pity for a vessel with such a unique history...

And, onto our glass-bottomed boat trip. We liked it because it was inside the boat, in air conditioned comfort. After getting severely overheated while putting on the affair yesterday, I was perfectly willing to sit in the cool air while watching Nature swirl by below us. Of course, Katrina simply had to blow this nice Mother-Daughter photo opportunity.

As you can see, we practically had the boat to ourselves.

As we made our way along the canal out to the open sea, we came across this really neat ship. We don't know the story, but it was tied up outside of somebody's residence.

Ok, we've made it out of the canal and now we're our way.

And this is the forward view on the starboard side.

Even from here on the second level of the boat, you can see that the water is a crystal blue and you can see the bottom.

To view the activity on the sea bottom, it is recommended that you sit on the floor and stare down into the bottom of the boat.

I even spotted some lights that the boat uses to do some night viewings too.

One thing is certain, don't stare for too long at the sea floor or you will start to get butterflies in your stomach.