My time in law enforcement exposed me to thousands of situations over my career. Some were routine, while others were critical incidents of life and death, all being played out daily for 31 years. But a few incidents were thrown into my personal X-file. Those incidents that could not be explained and the truth still dangling out there for someone to discover…or not.
One of them was from late 2013. The story of the SS Palo Alto in Aptos, California, and the disembodied voices heard there one stormy night.
Of course, when I’m traveling for ghost hunting or just goofing off, I’m eating and drinking…
The Dirty Dirty Martini
California Grill in Watsonville, Ca.
I like my martinis dirty dirty with Ketel One vodka! And the bartenders at California Grill make them the best for me. Sooooooooooo good! Cheers!
The Carbonara at Cali Grill is one of my favorites. It has pork belly chunks and peas in a rich carbonara sauce. I add grilled chicken and mushrooms to mine. It’s large enough that it turns into 2 meals for me.
Rosie McCann's Irish Pub
Downtown Santa Cruz, Ca.
I’m a big fan of burgers! Rosie’s Irish burger is right there at the top of best burgers for me. The mixed flavors of pastrami and the grilled beef patty are amazing!
The Bacon & Mushroom Omelet
Wooden Nickel in Watsonville, Ca.
It is a heaping mound of bacon, mushrooms, and Swiss cheese. Another 2 meal dish for me. The Wooden Nickel era may be coming to a close soon as the owner is considering retiring and selling the business.
Staff of Life market
Watsonville, Ca.
Every Tuesday night Staff of Life grocery market does a double cheese burger that tastes great! Their 2 patties are juicy and smothered in cheese. They add a Russian dressing type sauce to their burger, which makes it taste even better.
Santa Rosa Market
Watsonville, Ca.
Next to my restaurant is the Santa Rosa Market. They do burritos all day long. And my employees, including myself, spend way too much time and money at this market! Their burritos are some of the best in town. For breakfast they have the chorizo and egg burrito. And all day, they have a selection of lunch time burritos. My favorite is the Carnitas burrito pictured above. Great eats, but dang, gotta watch the waist line with this market.
Ajitama: Soft Ramen Egg
Miyuki Restaurant in Watsonville, Ca.
For me the best part of ramen are the soft eggs. Our process to make them at Miyuki restaurant is very simple and it yields a high flavor content. The biggest part of the flavor punch comes from our 24 hour marinating process. We boil the eggs for 6 minutes, put them in ice water to cool off, then dunk them into our marinade for 24 hours. The result is a flavorful egg with a jam like yolk. Soft and silky.
The Hauntings on the SS Palo Alto
The SS Palo Alto was grounded here on purpose. It was built to be a tanker for World War 1, but by the time the ship was ready the war was over. So here it sits!
My dad, my younger brother, and I spent many years here together fishing and hanging out.
But Mother Nature had other plans for the ship as time went on…
In late 2013, when I worked patrol, I was the sergeant in-charge of the swing shift units! Our day never started or ended the same way. Every day was different. While we were getting ready to hit the streets, we learned that State Parks was searching for a teenager at Seacliff State Beach.
A young male had gone missing and the bicycle he was riding was found at Seacliff in Aptos, California. By nightfall, State Parks Law Enforcement Division requested the Sheriff’s Office to assist in a nighttime search of the old cement boat. The once beautiful SS Palo Alto now sat wrecked and decaying in the waters just off the beach. The ship was purposely ditched at Seacliff and a pier was built out to the ship after WWI.
As a kid, my father and I would fish on the grounded Palo Alto several times a month even though fishing from the boat officially ended in the 1950’s. But eventually the shipped was closed off to the public as it decayed further into a dangerous pile of cement and metal.
My patrol team was busy with the usual night’s calls for service, so I arrived with State Parks to help them out. I met with the State Park Ranger and his civilian park employee. It was dark, rainy, and windy that night. Getting on board the ship was dubious at best. We had to have the fire department come out and extend a ladder from the pier to the ship and crawl over the treacherous waters below us.
Once on board, we began our search of the ship. Now, keep in mind, the ship was in ruins with sharp metal, broken cement, and big holes in the deck to fall through. One wrong step and you would become a shark snack.
We visually searched the bowels of the ship by hanging our heads through the holes of the deck and used our flashlights to light up the area.
The civilian park employee, who was standing behind me, tugged at my arm as I dangled my head below deck. She said, “Did you hear that?” “Hear what?,” I replied, in an annoyed tone of voice. All I could hear was wind, rain, and waves crashing up against the ship. She said, “I heard a woman screaming!”
I told her there was no one below the deck. We had been searching with our lights below deck for a while. The bowel of the ship was hollow and you could see from bow to stern with no obstructions. And we were the only people on deck!
The waters on the outside of the ship and pier were murky, choppy and it was dark. There was no way to see what was under water. There was nothing more that could be done during that moment in time. It was time to get off the ship before we became victims ourselves.
As we packed up, I heard a distinct scream that sounded like a female. Followed by multiple disembodied voices whispering unintelligible words. The civilian employee looked at me and said, “You had to have heard that! I replied, “Um, yeah I did!” I tried to debunk it quickly. It could have been the wind, rain, metal moving about the waves crashing. It was unexplained and I could not readily debunk it nor could I replicate the sounds we heard.
We all got off the boat safely. As we stood at the end of the pier looking back at the boat, we heard whispering voices again. This time the State Park Ranger heard it. He looked at me in disbelief and started to walk away.
Then I noticed the civilian employee staring into the distance, in a frozen trance like state. She turned and looked at me and said, “We have to go back on the boat…they are calling us!” I told her “Hell no! We are not!” She turned away from me and started to walk back towards the boat. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away! I handed her to the State Park Ranger and told him to get her off the pier.
I’m not sure what compelled her to completely disregard a directive, but it was as if she was momentarily hijacked or temporarily possessed by the spirits that lingered there…attempting to influence her back onto the boat.
Over the years I have had people tell me about a female screaming at the end of the pier and hearing other voices chattering when no one was on the pier. Today, the pier is gone, taken by Mother Nature. And the SS Palo Alto has broken into several pieces now, slowly being swallowed up the sea.
Sometime after the search, the young male was found deceased near the cement ship and the pier. He had a weighted backpack to sink himself to the bottom in an apparent suicide.
I never follow up just for curiosity’s sake on the outcome of incidents once a case is closed, but this particular incident was in the news for a while, and since I was still working full time, I was made aware of the case conclusion.
Many people, including myself, have known someone that committed suicide or have had a personal or professional experience with a suicide incident. Sometimes the signs of suicide are unrecognizable and take many people by surprise. So my heart goes out to the family and friends who were involved in this particular incident.
The voices we heard that night are hard to deny when two other people heard them at the same time I did. With the ship almost gone and the pier no longer there, I might not get another chance to experience the spirits of the SS Palo Alto. This story will remain in my personal X-file until the truth reveals itself.
Until next time on Haunted Foodie Traveler…
Cool!
Thanks Kevin!