Spongy Tarpon Springs

 © Rodney Todt Photography

 When a natural sponge is dry, its texture and feel are coarse and unappealing. When wet it is the most desirable to all hygienic aids.

 A short one-day trip from Orlando or Tampa Bay, a genial seaside town nestles along the Anclote River on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Tarpon Springs is an enticing diversion from the typical Florida hot spots. In the early 1900’s, divers changed their industry and turned this area into America’s “sponge capital”. 

 Although sponges dominate a visitor’s attention at this Greek-flavored settlement, a pioneer influence still infiltrates much of the historical downtown.

 Start a visit here with some basic lore at the Heritage Museum, located across Spring Bayou.  Its mission explores how the environment swayed the Greek, Victorian and Floridian cultures that created this unique place.  The native landscape and marine milieu attracted the area’s first settlers, and later, wealthy northern snowbirds for the healthful regional climate.  As a curator comment, tourists find the two wings of the museum delightful, as they ponder the town’s pre-historic ages through the contemporary sponge industry development.

 Natural sea sponges grow in warm, shallow waters in the Eastern Mediterranean and off the western coast of Florida. About 10,000 different species exist.  They evolved over 700 million years and are among the simplest animal organisms, composed of soft skeletons called spongin and a leathery skin broken by pores. To the ancient Greeks, sea sponges were known as “zoofitan”, half plant and half-animal.

If you care about the environment, then you should care about sponges, too. These Poriferan intakes hundreds of gallons of water daily through their pores, in which 90 percent of the bacteria in it are eliminated. The bacterium, as the entree, is eaten before returning the cleansed water back into the sea through its oscula. The sponge also features in cancer-fighting compounds and in medicines to lower rejection of transplanted organs.

In ancient Roman times, soldiers each carried one to serve as toilet paper (hypoallergenic and 100 percent biodegradable). In more contemporary times, the natural sponge is an effective way to cleanse, massage and exfoliate the skin. 

A sponge, in size suitable for bathing, takes up to 20 years to grow naturally. As a natural for environmental awareness, a focus on sea sponge harvesting and protecting the ecosystem around their seabed is a meaningful endeavor.

 In the late 19^th-century, Greek sponge harvesters typically descended into shallow waters with a large two-pronged hook and a string bag. These divers held their breath and collected sponges until their lungs began to burn from nitrogen.  Submersion-time was limited, and trips to the surface to off-load sponges were frequent and time consuming.

In June 18, 1905, in the Gulf off Tarpon Springs, two Greek immigrants, Demosthenes Kavasilas and Styliano Besis, made the first mechanized sponge dive from the sponge boat Pandora. With underwater suits and air provided by an engine, these divers could stay on the bottom harvesting sponges. Every ten-minutes, baskets were sent to the surface. By evening, the Pandora was completely filled. This new process changed Tarpon Springs’ cultural values forever.

In 1908 Greek divers, boat builders, deck hands, and buyers established the Sponge Exchange. This place consisted of a cluvas (storage bins) around a perimeter with an auction block in the center. The Exchange helped to organize sales and established a rating system. Sponges come in five primary grades: wool (the best grade), yellow, wire, grass, and finger.

The industry grew to 180 sponge boats through the 1940’s; local folk comment that during the depression, this was the only area town without a soup line. Today the Exchange has been converted to shops and restaurants. Visitors can buy sponges and feast on traditional Greek gyros, octopus, and baklava.

A visit to the Spongeorama is a must for those who love to see odd and strange things. A free movie acquaints tourists with the sponge industry in a small but quaint theater, while a free sponge museum stands next door. The fish pungent odor from the Tarpon Bayou sponge docks' next door enhances generously one’s experience.

Parking requires considerable patience. The Tarpon Springs Historic walking tour is a good idea, as is the trolley service that cycles through the district every 30-minutes or so. Notable stops include the Safford house, Castle winery, the train depot museum, and the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral, which is a Byzantine Revival building patterned after St. Sophia in Istanbul. The Unitarian Universalist Church houses the largest permanent collection of the famous landscape painter, George Inness. Jr. Finally an enjoyable stop for the family is the Tarpon Springs Aquarium, where scuba divers fascinate visitors with shark feeding exhibitions and a stingray touch tank the kids will enjoy.

Walt Disney World in Orlando and Busch Gardens in Tampa are only a couple of the normal tourist destinations in Florida. Although today the sponge industry economic activity is one-tenth the tourist industry it helps to support, Tarpon Springs is, by any accounts, enchanting and an adventure that any traveler will long remember well.