Shipwreck Cove arrived at Playa del Rey almost six months ago. Except this shipwreck is not at a fictional inlet found in the third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise but instead a beached boat wide open for all to see.
On Feb. 27, the boat Angelique beached on the shores of Playa del Rey. According to a fundraiser post on GiveForward.com, the owner of the 70-foot boat recently wrote Angelique ran out of gas in the middle of a storm and her anchor failed. It was not too long before Angelique – with three passengers and three dogs reportedly aboard – found itself where water meets sand at the upper reaches of Dockweiler State Beach.
“She was a beautiful part of our lives. She was our home,” the boat’s owner, who identified himself as Cosmo on his GiveForward.com fundraiser page, wrote.
Cosmo was apparently raising money for some sort of legal fight. He wrote both him and his wife spent three months trying to dig as much as 50 tons of sand out of the Angelique. During that time, Cosmo added intimidations were made toward him in an apparent attempt to transfer over the deed of the beached boat.
“Several intimidating attempts to have me sign over the title were made,” Cosmo wrote. “After they finally realized that was not realistic, and that we were on the final stretch towards floating our home off the beach, and that the labor was done to their (sic.) liking, and that they could auction our home to the highest bidder, shut us down and boarded up our home with some dirty unexisting (sic.) fabricated safety violation.”
When Angelique shored up just below Ballona Creek on Feb. 27, a CBS news report cited Sheriff’s deputies as stating the ship’s captain fell asleep after he reportedly anchored the boat near the Marina del Rey harbor, only to wake up a little before sunrise to discover his anchor dragging.
Though no injuries were reported once the boat beached, both sides seem to be telling different stories as to what exactly happened on that fateful February morning.
One thing is for sure: the aging eyesore at water’s edge will be around for a little while longer. After all, much of it is already buried in sand. Though no official reports are made public about how much it would cost to dig Angelique up and out of the sand, the bill most certainly would not be cheap.
It is possible Angelique will turn out to be a permanent fixture at Dockweiler State Beach, a prediction solely based upon the precedent set by the “Wreck of the Greek Dominator” in Rancho Palos Verdes.
In March 1961, fog reportedly cause the SS Dominator, a World War II era freight ship, ran aground into the cliffs of Rancho Palos Verdes. The freighter was en route to the Los Angeles Harbor from Vancouver, Canada, with a shipment of beef and wheat. After a concerted effort involving the ship’s crew, Coast Guard officials, and others reportedly failed, the Dominator essentially left for dead.
More than 53 years later, the remains of the Dominator remain. a hiking trail in the immediate vicinity spawned in the name of the shipwreck. It is literally named “Shipwreck Hiking Trail.”
Angelique still has a long way to go before it “celebrates” more than a half century of being run ashore on the Southern California coastline, but we are already going on six months of the boat occupying the northernmost corner of Dockweiler State Beach in Playa del Rey.
Westside Today will certainly keep tabs on whether county and state officials intend to ever have Angelique removed from the Playa del Rey coast, or whether Cosmo will have any success in reclaiming his prized boat.
Until answers are found, Westside Today asks what is the epic fail? Was it an epic fail for Angelique to run ashore in Playa del Rey? Or are county and state officials epically failing in allowing the Angelique to become more unsightly than a beached whale?
