Historic Cement Ship resting in pieces
Sad remains of landmark drawing spectators
The Cement Ship, a landmark for nearly 90 years at Seacliff State Beach on Monterey Bay, sits broken in pieces in the surf. Just offshore, its huge stern is toppled on its side and juts into the air like an old, unmarked tombstone.
It’s a poignant last chapter of a piece of history. For anybody who has been to the old Cement Ship, you’ll probably remember your days there. In many cases, they are unrepeatable moments.
The Cement Ship was a 400-foot vessel named the Palo Alto, built in 1919 with a hull cast in concrete when steel was in short supply after World War I. It was never deployed, was mothballed for 10 years, and then was towed to Monterey Bay. It came to rest in the shallows of Seacliff State Beach at Aptos, 8 miles from Santa Cruz, on a piece of oft-tranquil shore in Soquel Cove.
Nature bats last, as we say, and the winter storms battered the old ship into submission. The knockout blow came in late January. Waves that reached 34 feet high, according to state park staff, gashed off a 50-foot section of the ship and then tumbled it on its side. Waves from previous storms had severed the concrete hull into sections and opened up its interior to seawater.
At different times since the 1930s, the Cement Ship was a dance hall, amusement park, swimming pool, restaurant, fishing pier, picnic site and play structure for youngsters. It has long been closed to the public and now serves as an artificial reef, a jump-start for the marine food chain, and a landing site for shorebirds.
The winter news that a huge section of the ship had broken off and been knocked on its side has made it a phenomenon and tourist attraction. People want to see it with their own eyes.
At Seacliff State Beach, once you drive past the kiosk at the park entrance, a road to your left leads a short distance to a parking area adjacent to a series of wooden stairs. At the top of the stairs, you are provided a perch for a sweeping view of the old 500-foot pier and beyond to the toppled Cement Ship and miles of ocean.
The stairs lead down to the Seacliff Parkway, with access to miles of beach and ocean frontage. It’s a short walk, just a few minutes, for the best perspective of the pier and the ship.
The pier, once popular for fishing — perch in the winter, jacksmelt in the spring and the rare striped bass and white seabass in summer — has long been closed by storm damage. Back in the day, you could hop from the pier to the ship and fish from there. One magic year in early April, salmon approached within casting range.
The Seacliff Parkway is a paved trail that runs from Seacliff to Rio Del Mar. Even at midday last week it was crowded with walkers, joggers and folks out with their dogs. You get nonstop ocean views and access to the beach, backed by high bluffs and cliffs.
In Soquel Cove, the ocean is often serene, contrary to its temperament in winter storms. On calm summer nights during full moons, the surf often laps at the beach like a pond, and some will swim out in the calm waters and sidestroke around the old Cement Ship. The area is also a great launch site for some of the best flat-water ocean kayaking.
Two summers ago, in a historic anomaly, more than a dozen juvenile great white sharks roamed within short range of the beach and Cement Ship at Seacliff. One shark swam under the kayak of field scout Giancarlo Thomae. Also in recent late summers and falls, amid the calmest sea conditions of the year, hordes of juvenile anchovies have attracted pods of 40-foot humpback whales, often within kayak range.
Across America, Seacliff has long been on the national radar for vacationers whose dream is to cruise the California coast. Seacliff has a series of beachfront recreational vehicle sites with hookups. They are expensive, $65 a night, and sell out quickly. The RV sites are just about cleaned up from storm damage and are scheduled to reopen Wednesday. The adjacent beach is strewn with driftwood and, in some places, piles of wood.
For anybody who has been to Seacliff, seeing it now is like a walk in the past that is somehow all up to date.