Bob Salmanowitz remembers the food on the USS Intrepid — so good that men from other ships would come aboard to eat.

“We used to have a Texas breakfast, steak and eggs, on Sundays,” said Mr. Salmanowitz, a photographer’s mate on the famous aircraft carrier from 1955 to 1958.

Ralph Slane, an air traffic controller on the Intrepid during the Vietnam years of 1966 to 1968, remembers the six pilots shot down during one eightmonth cruise.

The two men joined other former crew members and a steady stream of visitors Sunday for the Intrepid’s last day as a floating museum before being hauled off to drydock in Bayonne, N.J., for a two-year renovation.

The $58 million overhaul will include repainting the Intrepid’s hull and rebuilding the Hudson River pier that has been its home as the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

In addition, some areas that have been closed to visitors, including crew living quarters in the lower decks, will be fixed up so that they can become part of the tour when the museum reopens in the fall of 2008.

The 27,000-ton carrier, a key component of the U.S. Pacific Fleet during World War II, was slated for the scrapyard when Zachary Fisher, a real estate developer, rescued it and brought it to New York in 1981. It opened as a naval and air museum the following year.

Florence Harrington had never visited the Intrepid before yesterday, even though she lives across town on the East Side.

“It’s something that should be seen,” she said. “It’s a very important part of history.”

Mr. Salmanowitz and Mr. Slane are among hundreds of former Intrepid crew members who are still alive. Many serve as hosts and tour guides.

“The young generation doesn’t have any idea what it means to be in the military,” said Mr. Salmanowitz, 69, of Pompton Lakes, N.J.

Mr. Salmanowitz got to see the world when the Intrepid sailed to the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the North Atlantic, where he nearly went overboard in high seas.

Most of his memories are happy. “I enjoyed being on board here,” he said.

Mr. Slane, 74, of Queens, has been a tour guide since the Intrepid opened in 1982 and has run into several Navy buddies who happened to be visiting the museum when he was there.

“When we were in the service we really never thought we’d want to come back,” he said. “But years later, it’s like a second home.”