Dive Hazard, Marineland, Pebble Beach

[mccabejc]

Some of you may already know this, but on exiting at the Pebble Beach at Marineland today we noticed three jagged wooden posts, sticking straight up (maybe 2 ft. tall), ready to tear up an unsuspecting diver trying to enter or exit. Aside from being pretty gnarly, they are only visible when the tide is at least -2.0 ft. Here are a couple of photos, when the tide was starting to come back in.

 

[shaxs]

Some of you may already know this, but on exiting at the Pebble Beach at Marineland today we noticed three jagged wooden posts, sticking straight up (maybe 2 ft. tall), ready to tear up an unsuspecting diver trying to enter or exit. Aside from being pretty gnarly, they are only visible when the tide is at least -2.0 ft. Here are a couple of photos, when the tide was starting to come back in.

that rocky beach looks more annoying to me

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Those are pilings from the old Marineland pier of many moons ago. A little farther out are two sharp angle iron pieces. When diving Marineland it's always advisable to stay on the west side of the cove if your going to/from the large reef to the west, or swim to the center of the cove before heading east. One of my buddies found the pilings one day in zero vis. Fortunately for him, he hit them with the top of his head rather than tearing open his drysuit. Straight out from the pilings you will find a much larger section, about fifteen feet long laying on the sand.

 

[headhunter]

Thanks for posting that Jim.

These stakes protruding from the ocean floor were nasty looking! I thought I was in the Twilight Zone living though an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But to my dismay we never got to see Buffy!

It would be a community service to cut these off flat since you can only see them at low tide, but could get tossed on them by a relatively small wave in any tide.

Christian

 

[dgallo]

Or possibly anchoring some form of marker buoy to them as well.

- David

Thanks for posting that Jim.

These stakes protruding from the ocean floor were nasty looking! I thought I was in the Twilight Zone living though an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But to my dismay we never got to see Buffy!

It would be a community service to cut these off flat since you can only see them at low tide, but could get tossed on them by a relatively small wave in any tide.

Christian

 

[mccabejc]

Max, thanx for posting the photo of the old Marineland. Fascinating. I was there only once, in 1980 or thereabouts, but don't remember a thing about the place. I'm wondering if the dock we found was actually the tip of the pier shown in the photo. Though it's in a slightly different spot than in the photo.

"The Secret of Headhunter Reef" continues...

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Max, thanx for posting the photo of the old Marineland. Fascinating. I was there only once, in 1980 or thereabouts, but don't remember a thing about the place. I'm wondering if the dock we found was actually the tip of the pier shown in the photo. Though it's in a slightly different spot than in the photo.

"The Secret of Headhunter Reef" continues...

I was thinking the same thing. I was going to dive that dock(?) once but ran into a gill net on the way out. There were a couple of dead Blue sharks caught in the net, so we cut them out and gave them to some fishermen on the beach. After that, I bought a boat and began diving more wrecks offshore. I've made about a dozen beach dives at Marineland in the past year but forgot all about the dock. Maybe I'll try for it next weekend.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Max, thanx for posting the photo of the old Marineland. Fascinating. I was there only once, in 1980 or thereabouts, but don't remember a thing about the place. I'm wondering if the dock we found was actually the tip of the pier shown in the photo. Though it's in a slightly different spot than in the photo.

"The Secret of Headhunter Reef" continues...

Check out this link to a 1979 pic. If you click on the picture it will enlarge a lot! Still can't make out detail, but considering the pier was used by Marineland boats it is very likely that there were tires on the cave side of the pier.

http://www.californiacoastline.org/...,0,328,0,33.869787,118.410559,1440,900,91,272

 

[headhunter]

Check out this link to a 1979 pic. If you click on the picture it will enlarge a lot! Still can't make out detail, but considering the pier was used by Marineland boats it is very likely that there were tires on the cave side of the pier.

http://www.californiacoastline.org/...,0,328,0,33.869787,118.410559,1440,900,91,272

Thanks for posting that pic.

I don't think this is what we found, although it is possible. The size seems about right.

Tires were on both sides of the structure we found. The cleats to tie off to looked like crosses and were about 1.5 - 2 ft. high. I'd expect to be able to see them in the picture because of their large size. The structure had a large wooden deck with holes in it from deterioration.

There were two very large "drums" on each end that at first glance made me think that this was some sort of steel roller used for road construction. Closer inspection showed that these drums could not possibly roll, since it looked like there were two steel bars running lengthwise through each cylinder to prevent it from rolling and no axel through the center. The length of these cylinders was the width of the structure.

The two "drums" looked like they were intended to make this structure float, so I thought that it was probably a "floating" dock. It looked like a pontoon boat with the pontoons at the front and rear of the structure (going the wrong way).

It was cool to find this whatever it was.

Christian

 

[pasley]

If the pier is like most around here from the pier there would be a ramp or stairs that would go to a floating dock where the boat actuall would tie up. A close look at the photo just kind of "hints" at that on the cove side of the pier. This photo shows the other side of the pier. When you click on it it blows up big and you can see the davits for the ramp or stairs. Still can't see a floating dock, but there could be one.

http://www.californiacoastline.org/cgi-bin/image.cgi?image=7950104&mode=sequential&flags=0&year=1979