By Jon Chown
The SS Palo Alto has been a local icon for decades, providing a backdrop for countless photos. People forget, though, that it once was a place of adventure for local kids willing to test their nerves on rusted steel and dangling rebar.
Mark Marinovich was one of them. The Aptos native, a 1972 Aptos High grad, grew up fishing off the concrete hull of the World War I-era ship built of cement and abandoned off Seacliff Beach.
Decades later, his memories of the Cement Ship, mixed with local lore and a lot of historical research, became the foundation of his new novel, Seacliff Park.
Marinovich will discuss the book during a public appearance at the Aptos branch of the Santa Cruz County Library on Jan. 23 from 2 to 3 p.m.
The Cement Ship, Marinovich said, creates a timeline for older generations of local residents. “Where at one time we climbed on the ship, often in the ship, and now there’s no pier to the ship,” he said. “Over the years, it means different things to all of us depending on the phase of life you’re in. It’s turned from a playground into a backdrop. It’s iconic. There’s nothing else like it.”
In researching the novel, Marinovich leaned heavily on the work and guidance of local historians, including Carolyn Swift, John Hibble and Sandy Lydon. He also credits the late David Heron, whose book **Forever Facing South: The Story of the SS Palo Alto** he calls a “gold mine” of information about the ship. The book is currently out of print.
Lydon’s foreword to Heron’s book describes childhood fishing trips inside the ship’s open compartments, the sort of experiences Marinovich shared years later as a teenager. He remembers climbing over the rail, sliding down rebar and lowering a fishing line into the holds. He wouldn’t hook any fish, but would definitely catch an adrenaline rush.
The SS Palo Alto before it and the pier were destroyed by waves and weather.
Those memories shaped Seacliff Park, a historical suspense novel set in 1929, during the ship’s brief life as an amusement destination. The book imagines newlyweds Lily and Charlie attempting to build a family attraction atop a derelict oil tanker, unaware that bootleggers have converted its hold into a Prohibition-era speakeasy — a setup that plunges them into violent gang conflicts.
Though the story is fictional, Marinovich said some of the characters and events are real. “It’s a combination of both,” he said. “I was superficially aware of most of the characters and events that I reimagined for my story, but never dug much deeper than that.”
Marinovich’s life as a writer began as soon as he could read, so it seemed obvious to pursue writing as a career. After high school, with the Watergate scandal in full throttle, he began studying journalism at Cabrillo College. A defining moment for him arrived when author Richard Bach, fresh off the success of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, visited Cabrillo. Marinovich helped pick up Bach from the Salinas airport, scribbling interview notes as the author watched over his shoulder.
“That experience stayed with me,” Marinovich said.
After college, Marinovich said he careened from survival job to writing project and back and forth. He wrote marketing communications, emails, website content and product announcements. He wrote most of Wells Fargo Bank’s brochures for many years before eventually moving on to eBay, where he was a senior copywriter. During that time, he wrote novels before work, after hours and even during breaks in his car.
His first novel, The White Boats, was optioned for film in 2015, though the project collapsed amid unrelated international media attention surrounding actress Kate del Castillo and her connections to the drug kingpin El Chapo.
In 2023, Marinovich broke his arm in a fall and was confined to a chair for months. After a week of watching TV, he got tired of that and started writing. He said he initially envisioned a short adventure-romance story set during the Cement Ship’s heyday in the early 1930s where sweet newlyweds would build a family amusement park atop the Palo Alto. It would be a happy story.
“Then I realized that nobody ever made a movie called ‘The Village of the Happy People’,” he said.
Seacliff Park is available at the Seacliff Visitors Center, Two Birds Books on 41st. Avenue, at all Santa Cruz County library branches, and on Amazon.
“It’s selling out at each location,” he said. “It’s because of that fasciation, that passionate interest in the Cement Ship. It’s unique. It’s iconic. It’s dramatic. It grips one’s imagination.”
TOP PHOTO: Local writer Mark Marinovich poses for a photo in front of the SS Palo Alto, known as the Cement Ship. He will be giving a talk about the novel at the Aptos branch of the Santa Cruz Library on Jan. 23 from 2-3 p.m.