Sunday the 27th was bright and shiny without too much wind, so I headed down the hill on the bike to the north shore of San Nicolas Island. It was a great day to check out and photograph an area that I had yet to visit — a beach with an old shipwreck. Unfortunately, I don’t have any good information on the ship that is buried in the sand right along the water here. A buddy here on the island said it might have grounded ashore in the 1950s. A google search on “San Nicolas Island shipwrecks” turns up a long list of wrecks, without the location of the wreck, so that was not much help.
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UPDATE: I received an e-mail from Richard Scott in August, 2023. Richard is familiar with this “shipwreck” and he shared this info:
“Was going through some of your pictures of San Nicolas and some titled Ship Wreck Cove. You comment that it was some unknown vessel. That looks like the YFU. The YFU was a harbor utility vessel sort of like a landing craft. When it beached I’m not sure but I believe sometime. Waves pushed it up on shore so far that the Navy decided to abandon it there. Circa 1975 the Navy Seals used it for training and in that process use multiple pounds of C4 and blew it up. They almost killed the XO of the Navfac. He was standing outside the BOQ when they blew it and a piece of steel imbedded in the BOQ about 3ft from him. It wasn’t a small piece either if it would have hit him it probably would have cut him in two. I was stationed there 1974-1976. I loved seeing your pictures. Thanks for posting them.”
And thank you, Richard!
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This wreck is near the center of the NNE-facing shoreline on the island. It is just to the ESE of Cissy Cove, but I think the actual beach or cove of the shipwreck is unnamed. I hereby name it “Shipwreck Cove.”
Click the image above to enlarge it. The old wreck is just to the left of center.
The images below were taken on the approach to Shipwreck Cove. Images 6 and 9 below show a nice, smallish sandy beach. This beach is the one just to the east of Shipwreck Cove. It also is nameless, as far as I know, so let’s call it “Almost Beach,” since the ship almost ran aground on this beach.
The images below show the shipwreck, including some looking down from the nearby bluff on its east side.
Finally, while I was rambling around the bluff, a monster elephant seal planted itself on the sand only 25 yards or so from the shipwreck. I think it knew I was nearby, but it didn’t seem to care too much. The remains of an old beached seal were adjacent to the wreck. No seal lives forever.
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