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No, No, No No! The Montebello is in 142-144 fathoms right off the Hotels (motels) at San Simeon. I KNOW this for a fact. I've SEEN it laying there---both parts of it! (it broke in two, or at least there is one section that is quite recognizable as a ship-like shape, laying on it's side, and near-by, not too far away is another "sounding" anamoly outline that is harder to distinquish much exactly "what" it is...but we have good reason to believe it's part of the ship...) As for the "recent work" "finding" the Montebello---- I say to that---what a pompous load of broken crockery that statement is! There were bottom trawl fishermen who had "found" that wreck before I could stand up and pee at the same time!
I AM a bottom trawl fisherman. I have "metered" the Montebello numerous times, and years before this recent researcher claims to have discovered it ---hehehe, one time, even while "towing" a net...the skipper I was fishing with at the time, asked me "what should we do?", meaning should we stop, or turn the boat and try to miss it, or so I assumed he was asking... I said forcefully, "turn, turN!" indicating offshore. We missed the wreck. And when we "picked up" the tow, we had about twelve thousand pounds of super nice chili-pepper rockfish. Big ones. Think I'm lying...? Well, there was a film made of this wreck of the Montebello a few years ago, and in the voice-over, we were all told "no one knows exactly where this ship really is"...like they were the very first ones since it sank to find the thing--- Some more recent evidence of fishermen "being there first" is in the VERY film made of the "discovery" of the Montebello. In this film (or video or whatever shown on television) one can see on the wreck some very large webbing streched over this portion of the wreck that they filmed.
And this mesh was much larger mesh than is used for bottom fishing, in fact it made me think of "swordfish driftnet" web for the size of it, except it was too big for even that, from what little I could tell from the footage shown on a television show. For a moment, I was perplexed, for most all bottom trawls, and all used in this area, are much smaller web...this web was large, as in "feet" "stretch measure", instead of the more usual 4 1/2 inch legal web... And a top-water offshore driftnet (22 inch mesh is typical)didn't make any sense at all, particularly stretched out with the meshes opened nearly square as they appeared on screen. Besides---from how swordfish driftnet gear is used it would be IMPOSSIBLE to have it end up stretched open like that, over a bottom obstruction in that depth. Then I remembered---Craig, from the F/V ZORA BELL set a "mid-water" net over this wreck once...caught about twenty thousand pounds of chili's in his first swipe, "flying" the net in the water column, right above the wreck... And interestingly enough, that was the first time Craig had used a mid-water net (hardly anyone uses that type of gear this far South, off of California...) On Craig's second, repeat "tow", he tore the ENTIRE bottom out of the net! Thus the webbing...
Now you listen to me. I told you already. There IS a natural oil seep miles North of this locale that I have just given you "local" insider knowledge and testimony about. You just go right back to your maps and look for "Ragged Pt." Roughly Southwest from there, is the seep.
Dragging bottom nets right over the bottom in the vicinity of this seep one quite literally will bring up tar blobs. The oil on the surface stinks of crude oil. Floating blobs of crude are also visible. I've worked oil fiels too, on land, and off-shore... Been there, done that...
As for "wrecks" in the area, we local trawl fishermen have dozens charted (mostly using the old 'loran' numbers). There is the wreck of a fairly large trawler almost half-way between the Montebello, and the tar seep Southwest off Ragged... F/V CHAMP---lost about '84-'85 or so... Don't even try and tell me that it's the CHAMP that is leaking. The seep pre-dates the sinking of the CHAMP, ans it's hulk is in about 212 Fathoms, almost due West of Pt, Piedras lighthouse...we know this for a fact too---'cause somebody has "hung up" on it! Oh, and the CINCO DE MAYO is in 184 Southwest of Pt. Buchon---I've been hung up on that one myself, then there is the STARLIGHT on the 27773 line, in about 87? Now just exactly where is that one?---I can find out if I wanted to---I WATCHED a guy lose a net on that one, hehehe...I'm sure he still has the readings for it.
Then there's the UMQUA CITY which was lost in the 140's at a place we call the "ling-cod hole" (because the CHAMP pulled MANY thousands out of that place years ago...) which remains are not in it's "original" location, because of a guy we call "purple sticks" running a boat called the NITA H hung up badly "on the numbers" we had for it, but was able to MOVE the damned thing a bit, finally getting loose of it only God knows where (until one of us hangs up, or loses a net on it...?) Hey---some of make it OUR BUSINESS to chart and catalogue bottom features in certain depths and locales--ok? I mean---that's how we make our LIVING, for crying out loud! (We all have other names for this "purple-sticks" personage---but blue invective aint allowed here...so I can't tell you more details of how and why that man is among the most hated of men on the entire Coast (Washington to California!)
There's more. Need I go on? Twenty years of fishing an area, watching a fathometer, setting a net, dragging it around, bringing it up, and sorting through and looking at what 'ya got will teach a fellow a thing or two...and while I'm at it, I can honestly say that I've done more "sampling" than any number of National Marine Fishery biologists that you could set end to end! But they are like you. I tell them something---they think I'm stupid or something. I know where the Montebello is. It aint the Montebello leaking oil. Here's another tidbit. Get a-hold of a Marine Chart for the area. Pt. Sur to Pt, Conception... Look closely right North-Northeast of Pt. Piedras. Very near land, just (roughly) South of Pt. Sierra Nevada (which isn't much of a 'Pt.', at all, but charted as such nonetheless) is a rock called "Harlech Castle" rock. The local history books relate that that particular hazard to navigation got it's name from a ship that ran aground there, named 'Harlech Castle". Then, within twenty years of this occurance, ANOTHER ship ran aground on the same rock, this ship also named 'Harlech Castle'. That's what the books say anyway... (all these other wrecks I've more direct, personal knowledge of!) I dunno, but I aint ever gonna try to name any boat around here "Harlech Castle". Would you?
That oil off of Ragged Pt? It's no wreck. It's not the Harlech Castles, either. It's much the same as the crude oil that gives "Coal Oil Pt." it's name... Quit thinking so much. You really don't know as much as you think you do!

I don't think you're stupid. Not at all. I get some of my best data from your compatriots in the Channel area. I few years ago we located a couple of Thiokol boosters that had sunk to the bottom because of reported snags. And the fishermen have helped some of our biologists locate hard bottom areas or sites to send out side scan sonar.

I think your account is facinating. Maybe you could provide me with some Loran coordinates or GPS coordinates next time you observe seepage.

Yeah, the locals have always been aware of where the Montebello went down. I am pretty sure it was observed sinking from shore. And of course the crew had taken to the boats. The folks at MBARI, some old friends of mine, like to get stuff into print. Others are looking for research grant money, so they "discover" and impeding crisis. Fact of the matter is, the oil still in the Montebello probably is denser than seawater by now, so it won't float. It will just flow on out on the seafloor around the wreck and be slowly destroyed by baterial and other biological activity.

Speaking of fishing, our "friends" in Fish and Game are dead set on ruining the commercial rock cod business ... at least south of you folks.

I'll tell you what I'll do. I will try to plot the general location of your siting with my geologic maps of the area. The geologic maps don't have the good bathymetry you work with, and you clearly have a much better knowledge wrecks and the hard bottom area .. so I'll take your word for it. I wonder if WE might be able to find a fault plane along which the oil is seeping?

P.S. Before I went back to college, I had my Z card (USMM)and was working toward a rating. There's not a salty phase you could turn that would cause me to blush! ;^)