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The Palo Alto, a ship made of concrete, was originally built as a tanker for the war effort, but when the war ended she was still under construction, so, in time, she was hauled here from Oakland, moored at Seacliff Beach Pier on Monterey Bay, and turned into a party ship, all dressed up in frills and finery, a boat in drag. A party boat made of cement? Ludicrous, you might exclaim, and who would disagree, but by 1930, her decks took on a carnival atmosphere. She sported a dance floor, a honkytonk piano, a 50-foot swimming pool, and a café. Twinkling lights hung from the masts and along the railings, and, with every sea breeze, music echoed off the cliffs behind the pier and into the sparse neighborhoods of the thirties.
Today she languishes at the end of the pier, tethered by a few remaining strips of rusted metal cabling. In places, lower parts of her have dipped beneath the bay surface, her midsection cracked open, exposing her soft insides to all forms of sea life and the elements. Every year she slips a little lower into the silt bottom of the bay. The Forest Service has cordoned her off to those who, up until a few years ago, walked out onto her decks and felt small pieces of history under their feet. Now posted signs warn: Danger! Keep Out.
Today the pier is relegated to weekend fishermen and visitors who push their noses through the steel mesh separating it from the ship. They grip the heavy wire with sandy fingers and ask each other, in wonder, how a ship made of cement could possibly float, and they stare at the teeming mass of seabirds that now call the relic home. Pushy gulls, quarrelsome pelicans, long-necked cormorants, and fat seals jockey and squabble for territory. The ragged hole in the hull allows the gulls and smaller birds to dip in and out at will, as they banter with gangly pelicans struggling to take flight on limited deck space. They huddle together on every surface at the bow of the ship, cheek to jowl, and argue. It is almost a performance for the gawkers behind the fence only a few feet away.
Visitors in the summer months and locals year round – yes, locals like me, are drawn here by some strange magnetic pull – flock to the area to look and perhaps to dream of a seaworthy vessel made of stone carrying them to exotic and distant ports.
Time, however, has not been kind to her. After the dancing feet stopped and the piano quieted, she has been battered and slapped by storms and left to withstand whatever the weather throws at her. The sea bombards her with logs the size of boulders and debris from shipwrecks in unknown places. She looks tired and beat up, the paint stripped from her hull by stinging waves and with each changing tide. She looks to be the epitome of obsolescence. And yet…
Yet, if you watch long enough and hard enough and squint into the setting sun, you will see she provides all measure of birds a haven from storms, pelting rain, and obnoxious beachgoers, who scream and chase them. So, you see, she is far from obsolete, serving a grand and noble purpose even today and even as she inexorably returns to the ocean depths.
Diane Turner
October, 2015