The Monterey Divers – Ghosts of Cannery Row

Back during Monterey’s sardine boom, divers worked some of the most dangerous underwater jobs on the California coast. Along Cannery Row, underwater pipes connected fishing boats and floating hoppers to the canneries on shore. Divers had to install, repair, and clear those pipes beneath dark, freezing water filled with kelp, debris, and boat traffic.

Two of the most well known diver deaths were:

• Henry Porter, who drowned after his diving helmet reportedly became unsealed while freeing a tangled net underwater.
• Tom Pierce, who was killed after a boat propeller tangled with his dive line.

Today, there’s a memorial dedicated to Monterey’s cannery divers at San Carlos Beach Park. It features a bronze Mark V diving helmet and honors the divers and tenders who worked beneath Monterey Bay during the cannery era.

As for ghost stories and paranormal lore…

Monterey has long had rumors of “phantom divers” tied to the old cannery district. Local stories describe:

• Shadowy diver figures seen near the old sardine pipe areas off Cannery Row.
• Reports of heavy boot footsteps or metallic clanking sounds near the waterfront late at night, sounding like old hardhat diving gear.
• Foggy apparitions described as old fashioned copper helmet divers appearing briefly near the shoreline before vanishing into the mist.
• Divers and fishermen claiming to feel watched underwater around abandoned cannery infrastructure.

A lot of this folklore likely grew out of the dangerous reputation of the old diving work. Those early hardhat divers already looked ghostly in real life, huge copper helmets, weighted boots, air hoses disappearing into black water. In Monterey fog, you can see how stories like that took on a life of their own.

There are also stories connected to the old sardine tunnels and underwater piping systems themselves. Some locals believed divers who died on the job never fully left the bay, especially around the old industrial sections near Cannery Row and San Carlos Beach.

John Steinbeck’s old Cannery Row atmosphere probably helped fuel the mythology too. Monterey’s waterfront has always had that mix of tragedy, fog, labor history, and ocean mystery that naturally breeds ghost stories.