18 Nov, 2009
California’s Iron Ship and its Cement Ship
Posted by: Beach Reporter In: beaches| california| travel
There are two great beach destinations to visit and take a look at California’s unique ships–San Diego’s Star of India is an iron ship in the San Diego harbor, and the Cement Ship at Seacliff Beach in Aptos, Santa Cruz County, is a decaying ship that has become part of a pier.
In San Diego, the Star of India is a floating museum you can pay a fee to climb aboard. As the world’s oldest seafaring ship, the the hull of the vessel was built with an experimental design using iron instead of wood in 1863. She launched from the Isle of Man and on her first trip encountered mutiny and a crash. Her second journey brought the ship into a fierce cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. Open as the Maritime Museum, admission is around $12 for adults. sdmaritime.com
The Cement Ship in the Monterey Bay is broken into several pieces. Birds live on it and the public can wander to the end of a pier to look over to the corroding vessel, but can’t climb aboard the ship that’s partially sunk in Pacific Ocean waters. Known as the Palo Alto, this cement ship in Santa Cruz County, was built in an Oakland, California shipyard in 1918 as part of the war effort for World War I. She never served her cause as the war ended before she was commissioned, so was sold and towed to what would later be called Seacliff State Beach. She was renovated as party boat, complete with casino. Sadly, the Great Depression arrived and the boat’s owners couldn’t afford to maintain the huge vessel.
These are two unusual and exciting attractions along the California coast. Not far from San Diego’s iron ship, you can see more unique boats north of the city in Encinitas. Two boat houses sit on a hilltop in a residential neighborhood amongst traditional homes just blocks from the beach. Thousands of tourists drive by to take a look and snap photos of these memorable icons of the American landscape.
