You are viewing Galveston Harbor, Texas and let's start with the iron hulled sailing barque ELISSA built in 1877 in Aberdeen,Scotland. She is a merchant ship that sailed under the flags of the U.K., Norway, Sweden, Greece, the U.S.A. and of course Texas. She is one of the oldest operational sailing vessels afloat and she still takes visitors into the Gulf of Mexico. Moving counter clockwise we see BB35 the battleship USS TEXAS commissioned in 1914. She was in drydock making extensive repairs before being towed to her new home in Galveston Bay. TEXAS is armed with ten 14 inch guns in five turrets, 5 inch guns, 40mm and 20mm antiaircraft guns. She is the last of the World War 1 "dreadnought" battleships and served with the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet in 1918. Modernized in the interwar years, she was one of the first U.S.Navy ships to carry radar. During World War 2 TEXAS served as naval gunfire support for the invasions of North Africa, Normandy, France for the D-Day campaign, Mediterranean France and Iwo Jima and Okinawa in the Pacific. In 1948 the U.S. Navy turned TEXAS over to the State of Texas for use as a museum ship. It has undergone repair work on several occasions. Continuing to the left is a floating oil platform with two drilling rigs. This is a common sight in the Gulf of Mexico. There is quite a bit of oil and natural gas under the sea and on land in the region. The photo was taken in 2025.