One dark night in July 2000, a 366-foot-long Canadian naval destroyer packed with explosives sat at anchor less than two miles west of the foot of Pacific Beach Drive. The deck was dark and there were no lights in the windows of the bridge. A small crew battled with an undersize pump below deck, struggling in vain to stem the flow of water that had begun to flood in through a hole in the hull near the waterline. The crew had radioed the Coast Guard for additional pumps, but none would arrive in time. Shortly after abandoning ship a little after midnight July 14, the last group of men to set foot on the HCMS Yukon watched as she floundered and disappeared beneath the dark waves to the muddy bottom 100 feet below, where she rests today. The fate of the Yukon — a Mackenzie-class destroyer that served in the Royal Canadian Navy and later in the Canadian Forces — had, in fact, been set in motion many years before. She was destined to be sunk in this very spot — just not so unceremoniously and anonymously in the middle of the night.   Her story begins with Dick Long, founder of San Diego-based Diving Unlimited International, a manufacturer of dry-suits for divers. Long had joined the nonprofit San Diego Oceans Foundation (SDOF) in the late ’90s after the group appealed to the local industrial and military community for help with their stewardship of the local ocean environment.   At the time, the city of San Diego had set aside an area off the Mission Beach coastline as a park called Wreck Alley, where artificial reefs could be created.  The purpose of the park was twofold: to create new habitats for marine life and a world-class attraction for recreational SCUBA divers.  Long took on the task of looking for ways to create artificial reefs in the park by diverting concrete debris headed for the city landfill to instead bolster the habitat project.   As Long researched similar projects in the U.S. and abroad, he came across the Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia (ARSBC) in Canada.  The ARSBC is a nonprofit society that creates reefs from decommissioned Canadian naval ships.   “That’s nice,” Long recalls telling them after their first meeting in 1997. “But I’m into concrete, not ships.” Shortly afterward, the ARSBC called him to say it had an extra ship it didn’t have a place for.  Long reported back to the SDOF and Project Yukon was launched. “We paid about a quarter of a million dollars for the ship,” said Long, “and they were supposed to clean it up and give it to us ready to sink.” However, after having it towed down to San Diego at a cost of $80,000, Long said the Oceans Foundtion discovered the Yukon wasn’t clean enough to meet U.S. standards for sinking as an artificial reef.  The use of a berth in San Diego Bay was donated by the Port Authority, and an army of volunteers set to work on what would turn out to be a 14-month cleaning project. Hundreds of volunteers worked tirelessly to strip the Yukon of hazardous materials, wiring, glass and paint in preparing her for a new life as an artificial reef.   “Without those people, we would’ve never made it,” Long said.   On that July 14 day in 2000, it was supposed to be a major celebration; the culmination of all those volunteer efforts. Events had been planned; a flotilla of boats was to be packed with excited onlookers and media representatives from all over the world, and were set to sail out to Wreck Alley for the sinking.  There was to have been helicopters in the air and crowds watching from the shore. There had even been a raffle slated to select the person who would have the honor of pushing the plunger to detonate the explosives in the bow and the stern. These expertly-placed charges were supposed to explode, tearing holes to flood the ship in a controlled manner and precisely send her to the bottom in an upright position.   It was all set to be a major event, but apparently the HMCS Yukon had other ideas.  Soon after being towed away from the dock in San Diego Bay, her boiler room began to flood. Once onsite off Mission Beach, she was anchored and the crew set about controlling the leak.   There were holes cut in the side of the hull for divers to use for safe entry and exit when exploring the ship underwater.  The holes were covered with plywood sheets for the evening to prevent waves splashing inside.   As the evening wore on, however, the surface swell changed direction. The Yukon was anchored at three points and was unable to turn around to face the new swell direction. Waves started to push water past the plywood covers and into the hull.  Soon, the volume of incoming water exceeded the capacity of the only pump aboard.  The call to abandon ship went out at 12:25 a.m. as the Yukon slowly slipped below the surface. Instead of coming to rest in an upright position, as planned, the Yukon came to rest lying on her port side. Jay Schwartz, a retired commercial airline pilot, was at work “36,000 feet somewhere over the middle of America” that morning when his co-pilot asked him if he had heard about the early demise of the Yukon.   It was a bittersweet moment for Schwartz, who had spent 14 months volunteering on the cleanup crew for the Yukon.  He was supposed to have been one of the first divers to descend on the wreck after the sinking as part of a check-out team that would inspect the wreck before it would be declared open for all divers.   Instead, Navy explosive ordnance disposal divers were the first to descend. They recovered the charges that hadn’t been detonated, clearing the way for Schwartz and his team to do their check-out dives. Since the sinking in 2000, thousands of divers have visited the wreck.  Long said a study by the University of California estimated the Yukon brings $4.5 million into the San Diego economy from visitors who travel here just to dive the wreck. “The city of San Diego gets 10 percent on everything that goes on at Mission Bay and San Diego Bay,” said Long. “That means they make $450,000 every year — year after year — and they only put $50,000 into it.” Today, Schwartz still helps maintain the Yukon through his volunteer work with SDOF. On June 21, he was aboard the Lois Anne dive charter at Seaforth Landing, headed out to the wreck for some last-minute preparations before the 10th anniversary of the Yukon’s sinking.   Schwartz descended along the mooring line, which he maintains on the wreck as part of his role as the SDOF mooring coordinator for the Yukon.  Looking down from the surface, the yellow mooring line disappeared into the dark blue water. This diver joined Schwartz that day. As we descended, bright white anemones began to appear out of the gloom first. Then, slowly, geometrical lines began to form, tracing out the shape of the Yukon. Visibility was about 50 feet and the wreck was rich with marine life. Jellyfish floated motionless amid a large school of sardines circling above the anemone-encrusted hull. Schwartz pointed out a plaque near the bridge bearing the name “Milt’s Tilt” as we made our way inside the ship to the “Wall of Honor,” a bulkhead covered with plaques bearing the names of many of the volunteers and sponsors who helped to get the Yukon here.   Schwartz has spent the last four months carefully removing marine growth from the plaques in preparation for an upcoming 10-year anniversary celebration set for Wednesday, July 14 and Thursday, July 15. On July 14, the SDOF will host an event at the High Dive Bar and Grill (1801 Morena Blvd.) from 6 to 10 p.m. Local divers will be encouraged to dive the Yukon that day and bring their photos or video with them to the bar.  The bar will donate 10 percnt of the evening’s proceeds to the SDOF. On July 15, the California Ships to Reef Association, (CSRA) a splinter group of the SDOF that is dedicated to sinking more ships as artificial reefs, plans to stage an underwater press conference on the wreck and hide a time capsule to be recovered on the 20-year anniversary.   The CSRA will be holding events at the Maritime Museum of San Diego on July 14 as well, including a raffle for divers to join them on the wreck for the press conference the next day. This time, hopes are high that the HMCS Yukon will cooperate with the planned celebrations.