Outside - Fence - to address safety issues and to give the Museum ‘street presence’ and Porch - to restore historical integrity to the building and for stroller storage. Entry - Welcoming/waiting area and coat and bag storage. Tickets will serve double duty as floor maps (both of the Museum and its related, outdoor wayside exhibits), and as a regularly changing story line for interacting with the exhibits. Chandlery: Visitors will enter a recreated ship’s store (called the Chandlery) complete with shelves, crates, and supplies to outfit their imaginary voyages. The entrance to this exhibit area will function as the museum’s reception desk, as well as serving as part of the Chandlery exhibit furniture. In the Chandlery, visitors will outfit a vessel for a journey, and the storyline and details for the visitors’ journey can be changed seasonally. Examples of possible exhibit activities include: measuring of cargo (weighing materials, calculating footage, counting rations) and selecting proper supplies (sorting, deciding, estimating), as well as transporting materials from the Chandlery into the “Big Ship.”

Big Ship: As visitors move past the Chandlery they enter The Big Ship exhibit zone. Visible from the museum’s entrance, the ship is the iconographic image of the museum. As the “current voyage” of the Big Ship changes, so, too, would the materials needed from the Chandlery.
Fashioned from authentic materials, The Big Ship includes learning and exploring opportunities for all age groups: climbing on ladders, handling rigging, pounding caulking for repairs, loading cargo onto gang planks, putting bales of cargo on pulleys, crawling though companionways into cargo holds, steering the ship, peering through spyglasses and swabbing the upper deck.

Navigation Station: Visitors enter an area filled with different types of navigation and communication tools used for sea travel. Even internet satellite imagery is part of the exhibit. There is a large graphic map of Long Island strategically palced on the north wall and various measuring tools to determine scale and find items using map keys of museum floor plans.
Other exhibit activities in the planning include journal writing and log keeping, Morse code and signal flag communication, and mapping depths using rocks and rope, and mapping depth using a sonic signal system.

Pirate's Cove: Visitors will enter a Pirate’s Cove (the centuries-old name for a section of the Port Jefferson waterfront) and find an exhibit area containing a rocky amphitheater, like those found in the Long Island Sound, with a small weathered boat tied up in the cove.
The artificial rocky outcrops will also serve as seating area for museum performances and small group activities, such as storytelling. When not being used for seating or performances, young explorers will enjoy searching this rocky cove--small changeable
exhibit niches will be filled with items such as shells, exoskeletons and plants to examine. Additional niches of the rocky cove are filled with seaside sounds, smells and textures to enjoy.
For the museum’s very youngest visitors, the small boat serves as a “safe harbor.” Infants and toddlers will find a comfy padded area inside the boat filled with stimulating multi-sensory exhibits with a beach-themed twist, such as seashell rattles and a sandy texture board. A sea gull mobile drifts overhead and the sound of surf crashes in the background, as adult caregivers and first-time parents find seats on the edges of the boat to watch their young beachcombers play and discover.
In these ways, Pirate’s Cove can function as both a rich and varied exhibit zone to explore natural history themes, as well as a small-group assembly area, depending upon the needs of the museum and the visitors.

Boatyard: Raise the sails and hoist the pulleys! The Boatyard builds upon the activity of the Big Ship exhibit area to introduce not only the history of the Harbor, but the science and engineering “nuts-and-bolts” behind the ships and shipbuilding that helped Port Jefferson grow.
Visitors will get some hands-on history by trying on the clothing and using the tools of ship workers and other townspeople from the 1800s and early 1900s, the most active era of shipping on Long Island. Using tools such as time-lapse video units and remote sensing devices, young scientists can observe changes in the harbor over time as well as monitoring the current conditions of the waterfront visible through the rear windows of the museum. Another “window” is employed as a computer controlled “time machine” to give visitors a sense of how the Harbor has changed from the times of the original Native American inhabitants of this area, to modern day Port Jefferson.
The Harbor outside the museum is a rich environment filled with sea life, as well as ships. Complementary educational programming on CMM’s revitalized water-front is currently being developed.