Full-On Tourist In Tarpon Springs

Full-On Tourist In Tarpon Springs - Part 2

We have returned this beautiful Monday in Northlandia to a trip to Tarpon Springs the family took a few weeks ago. Part 1 is somewhere if you want to refamiliarize yourself to our adventure upstate a few miles. I think boats, the sea and all things nautical are usually pretty neat. I it because I grew up in Seaton? Or is it like JFK's remark, something like we all have a yearning to the seas, from whence we came?

Anyway, the large fishing boats above, the Miss Lexy and the Miss Lupe have their home ports out of Blythe Island, Georgia.

A moored spongeboat.

Someone's drink abandoned.

This is the Anastasi, an actual working spongeboat. While sitting on a bench waiting for our boat to take off, I watched the Greek bag all of his sponges he found after having air dried a while.

This one is for you Cub's fans.

Our sponge diver, Frank, suiting up in authentic hundred year old diving equipment.

Our navigator and guide on our trip pointed out that this is the only original sponge boat that is left in Tarpon Springs.

Here is our intrepid diver, swarthy Frank, walking the shoreline looking for a fresh sponge.

Sponges are retrieved from the floor bed with a glossy, almost plastic look and feel. The outer coating is taken off and then you have the look and feel we all know and love. Sponges are pretty cool. I did not know that for showering and cosmetics they do not retain any bacteria.

So, our trip was a success. Norah and I slipped away from the rest of the group when we spied an ice cream store. Shopping was kinda fun, too. I got a glass starfish that glows in the dark for absolutely no good reason (buying it, not the glowing). Kudos to the planners of this trip. That's what makes Florida worth sticking around for - that and the kidlings and the year-around shorts, and the paycheck, and the occasional cookouts that we don't have enough of. But I digress.

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Flashback Friday

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Existing In BFE

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