Naval Undersea Museum

The official museum of the US Navy's undersea programmes, hidden in the small town of Keyport on the north end of the peninsula. It is much bigger and better than its location suggests — a full-size deep-submergence vehicle parked out front, hands-on torpedo and mine exhibits inside, recovered Japanese midget submarines, and the actual control room of the USS Greenling. The history of underwater combat and exploration is told in detail you will not find anywhere else.

Admission is free, parking is plentiful, and there are picnic tables on a grassy slope above Liberty Bay. Allow at least two hours; with children it will easily be three. Closed Tuesdays.

things to do museum
A story
Outside the museum sits the deep-submergence vehicle Trieste II, sister to the bathyscaphe that took two men to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 1960. The Trieste II also went after lost nuclear material — most famously parts of the sunken submarine USS Thresher, recovered from 8,400 feet down off New England in 1964.