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"...Now those crankshafts are still there. "How come you guys don't save her?" I ask Joseph Ditler of the San Diego Maritime Museum when I get back. "Don't you realize what a piece of California history she is?"
A silence on the phone. "I'll meet you," says Ditler, "on the Silver Strand. By the Navy Seals' training compound, 3:33 p.m., exactly."
The time and the place are important, it turns out; 3:33 is low tide. The winter storms have gouged out a lot of the sand. The beach is down maybe ten feet from its summer level. Ditler stands on two rusting bollards poking out of the shallows. "Know what this is?" he asks. "It's the Monte Carlo. Same length, three years older than the Catalina. One of the first ships on the coast made of concrete. She was a gambling ship when she was wrecked here in 1936. She used to anchor out there just beyond the three-mile limit. And see down here?"
He points to a hatchway that leads into a deep green pool of water. "Down there is treasure. Maybe $150,000 worth of silver dollars still stuck in the slot machines, and acres of whisky besides. People have argued we should rescue this ship for history. We've been offered so many ships, you wouldn't believe it. A submarine [The USS Blueback], an aircraft carrier ...".
NOW WE KNOW WHERE ALL THE CHIPS ARE!! If you use Google Earth and a little detective work, you can find the approximate location of the ship as mentioned in the article.
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