Spoiled My Day

It was going to be a big day for divers in mid- July, when a 2890-ton Canadian battleship was to be sunk two miles off San Diego’s Mission Beach, amid a fanfare of fireworks. Paying passengers had reserved scores of boats to watch the big event.

Trouble was, the Yukon ruined the party by sinking ignominiously on her own, the day before the festivities. Plywood-covered holes cut to aid the sinking didn’t hold back the seas, as we lay folks might imagine.

Rather than land upright, the Yukon rolled over on its side. The first group of divers to see the sunken Yukon, people who wouldn’t have paid a nickel to walk the deck while it floated, paid $100 each to benefit the Oceans Foundation, which still has $150,000 in debt from the project.