My longest post to date and it’s not even about the van. After returning to the California coast, I settled back into “sticks and bricks” life (phrase for living in a conventional house), commuting to the office and harbor watching when home.
Caleb had been a romantic (to me) fixture in the harbor since before I arrived in Half Moon Bay early in 2017. Boats are usually referred to as “she”, but with a male name, I call Caleb “him”. I have a thing for tug boats, and while Caleb clearly could use some maintenance, it moored majestically in the harbor for years, only occasionally repositioning.
I never met the owners/liveaboards. I had seen people on it and shouted a greeting while paddling past, but they ignored me and pretended not to hear me. Ok, not friendly – noted. So I continued admiring Caleb from afar and dreaming of restoring him and turning him into an on-water restaurant or something.
The winter of ’21-’22 was particularly brutal with the usual round of coastal storms. We weren’t there, but I heard Caleb broke free of his mooring multiple times. In an attempt to save him, the owners (from what I heard) drove him into the harbor marina and tied him to a dock. (First off, dang, I didn’t realize the boat actually ran!). Due to Caleb’s size, the harbor wanted it off the docks due to the potential to damage the infrastructure.
Since the owners didn’t respond to requests – ultimately, the Coast Guard came in and removed all electronics and liquids and the harbor contracted another (beautiful!) tug to tow Caleb back out into the harbor. The first attempt failed and Caleb broke free and ended up along the jetty. So they towed him back to the marina and made a second attempt. That one stuck. Literally. Caleb sank within 24 hours. My guess is that with batteries, etc. removed, the bilge pump no longer worked and Caleb had a leak. Or something.
The story of the owners came out several years later. Shocking.
Another ship of interest arrived in the harbor – clearly a pirate ship replica. I watched the captain struggle to set the anchor without it dragging, ultimately just going back and forth across the harbor. Eventually he also went to the docks, so KT and I walked over there to get a closer look.
It turned out (and we’re pretty sure this is true), that KT worked for the person who originally built the concrete hull in HMB. So the captain offered us a ride the next morning to Santa Cruz, with two deck hands he hired in the marina.
Unfortunately, the entire trip was socked in with fog, so we didn’t see much of anything, particularly the beautiful coastline from the water. Still, it was fun. We had lunch in Santa Cruz and ubered back home with a fisherman who had been hired to copilot.
