The Nina, the Pinta...but No Santa Maria!



Last week, we took a day off as a family to travel through history.  A whole lotta history!

First, we visited the scale reproductions of the Nina and the Pinta, which were docked in Pittsburgh.

I was amazed at how tiny the ships were.  I cannot imagine trusting these vessels to go through uncharted waters for an unknown length of time to a destination that may or may not be where the captain thought it would be.

 Did you know that everyone except Christopher Columbus had to sleep on the ship's deck?  


He had his own quarters.  Can you imagine having to tough it out on deck when it was storming in the middle of the ocean when all you wanted was a good night's sleep?

Did you know his crew were a bunch of prisoners that had been freed to man the ship because no other crew members in their right minds would go on this fool's errand with Columbus?  When they had had enough of sailing endlessly with no land in sight they almost mutinied.

Can you imagine a ship full of former prisoners mutinying?!!  Yipes!  Talk about a mob!


The kids had fun running around the decks, feeling the giant ropes used to secure the sails, and climbing to the upper deck to view the water from a height.

The ships were black, like pirate ships, because they're coated with tar to keep them water tight.  (Did you know that?) They tried to keep to the original building methods, so they're pretty authentic, as far as I (a non-expert) can tell.


 And, most surprising of all, there was no Santa Maria in this collection of ships.  Do you know why?


The Santa Maria only made the first voyage across the Atlantic.  


Columbus hated the ship because it was slow and clunky.  That's why the ship never made it back, and why the team who built the reproductions didn't bother with the Santa Maria.


 (here is a model of the Santa Maria on one of the ships...not totally left out)

 In fact, they dismantled the Santa Maria and used the lumber to build shelters for the people who stayed in North America when Columbus returned to Spain to show off what he had discovered.




As a kid, I had no interest in history, but that was probably because all my learning came from a textbook.  Learn names and dates and be ready for Friday's test.  Bo-ring!

Loading up the family and learning together for a whole day - now that's the right way to learn history!


Cousins, grandparents, aunts and parents, siblings - well, we were all there.  We ate lunch by the Monongahela River with our family.  It's one of only two rivers in the world that flow north.  Did you know that?  We fed giant carp with our bread crumbs, then walked through a tunnel that displayed murals of important people and events Pittsburgh's history.  That wasn't even part of our planned tour.  How cool was that?

Even though I set out with the goal of "educating the children,"
I think I'm the one who was schooled.  I now know more than I ever have about Columbus and his voyages, and I think our kids picked up a lot, too.

Real life experience is the best way there is to learn!  Why don't we do this more often?

I wish I could throw the workbooks out the window some days.  So do the kids.  There is a time and place to learn while sitting down, repeating facts or figures...but there is also a time for real-life, hands-on learning.

So glad we were able to jump in!





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