"The shark's name is Reefie"

Cherbourg (week 1)

Today's excursion was to the Cité de la Mer, an aquarium/sea exploration museum in Cherbourg.  It has one very large tank (2.5 stories) based on a coral community, as well as the typical series of small aquaria.  There are also many exploration exhibits featuring, for example, deep-sea submersibles like Alvin.  France's first ballistic missile submarine Le Redoubtable (S 661) is there as a museum ship (the reactor and missiles removed, obviously!), so we went through that.  David liked the submarine driving simulator.

Conning the Redoubtable

Finally, there was a Titanic exhibit, with a very effective introductory show - it tells the timeline of the voyage and sinking through wireless transmissions.  The morse code is heard over the speakers and the words (in English and French) are printed on the screen, along with a running clock telling the time of each transmission.  The exhibit also has recreations of cabins, etc.