[CINC] Thanks to Joel Justin, Robert Schwemmer, and Don Mills!

[Paul Jr. Petrich]

Dear CINC Volunteers, The Los Angeles Maritime Museum, at the old ferry building in San Pedro, has just featured "Shipwreck of the Purse Seiner Del Rio" its quarterly newsletter the Channel Crossings. The Del Rio now rests in shallow water in Frenchy's Cove off Inspiration Point, Anacapa Island. My father was one of the original owners when the vessel was a part of the most productive fishing fleet in the world, plying the most bountiful fishing grounds in the world. Robert Schewemmer, the West Coast Regional Maritime Heritage Coordinator, and his NOAA team are currently doing exploratory and monitoring dives on the wreck.  I would like to thank Robert for giving me the opportunity to write a researched story  of this CINP and CINMS maritime heritage treasure, and for his expert contributions to the story, through both editing and undersea photography. I would also like to thank Joel Justin, our very own CINC Volunteer of the Year, for his expert choreographing of the photo inclusions and formatting of the research story. He helped me in an area I would have screwed up immensely! Thanks to both of you for your patients with my constant updating! The Del Rio story in the Channel Crossings will be continued in a second installment come March. That installment will introduce the CINP and CINMS as the home of the Del Rio today as she rests in their waters, which are once again becoming the marine treasure chest they once were. Thanks also to "Silent" Don Mills, another hardworking CINC member who found in his own archives, a photo of the Del Rio's wooden remains scattered on the beach of Frenchy's Cove a year or two after she sank.    Sincerely, Paul Petrich Jr.P.S. The Builder's Plaque installed on the Del Rio when she was built in 1935, but taken off by the U.S. Navy prior to WWII when she saw military duty as a commissioned mine sweeper, was found by a nautical collector in San Francisco. Robert Schwemmer was also instrumental in helping me obtain this nautical artifact and to get it to the Santa barbara Maritime Museum. In 1952, when the Del Rio sank, the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum was actually a US Navy and Coast Guard facility and home base for the Coast Guard Cutter that sped to the distress call site. 
  		 	   		  
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