The ocean has seasons.
As a young girl, I thought the beach, the waves, both flora and fauna, remained the same year round.
Overtime, I noticed this wasn't so.
One Thanksgiving, the bay was full of dolphins and seals. Sea life was migrating and the larger mammals followed for the feast.
One morning we started on a beach walk and it was littered with hundreds of empty sand dollars. We postponed our walk that day and collected. Other times, the beach is covered with clams or rings of mucous-y sand held together in a fringed ring--a seasonal practice of egg laying by a water creature.
Never was it more clear than when I spotted what appeared to be the outline of a ship. It was during the winter months when the winter surge is stronger and carries sand from the beach. The sand lowers and stairs reappear and the depth of boulders protecting real estate, is revealed. The rest of the year, I forget about the old ship, but seeing it again ignited my curiosity for its story.
The SS Monte Carlo was once an oil tanker. During the 1930s before Prohibition (18th amendment) was repealed by the 21st amendment, it served as a gambling, prostitution, drinking establishment, anchored off the coast of Los Angeles and later Coronado Island. In a New Year's Eve storm, it broke from its anchor and grounded into the shore. The concrete ship was promptly abandoned as no one would claim an illegal operation.
I saw the old ship in March, and knew come April, it would be gone.
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