Sponges, Fireworks, & Shuffleboard

 

We were tickled pink that we landed at an ideal, protected anchorage location at—that was empty too—right in front of downtown St. Petersberg. At night, the lights of the high-rise condos competed with color. 

OUR ROUTE THROUGH THE UPPER HALF OF WESTERN FLORIDA COAST

Sponges, Fireworks and Shuffle Board are an odd grouping, but sometimes oddities are what we’ve come to expect in the West Coast of Florida. We marched down the coast stopping at the small cities.

TARPON SPRINGS

We went to this outstanding seafood restaurant in Tarpon Springs. It was probably the best seafood meal we had on the whole Loop. A fun-loving waiter helps to ready Mike for a crab dinner. The place was packed and we were lucky to get a table for a large group of us Loopers.

Tarpon Springs was our first stop after the overnight crossing from the Florida Panhandle. We actually preferred to start our Florida trek further South in Tampa Bay, but we could not find any available transient slips in the Tampa Bay area. 

This area was hit hard by Hurricane Helene (September 2024). My impression was that either marinas were closed for rebuilding or were open and eager to have visitors, in spite of missing some conveniences such as a working pump out. By the time we arrived in December, Greek Town, the tourist area in Tarpon Springs, was open. We heard they had five feet of flood waters following the hurricane.There were shuttered store fronts, but that may have been unrelated to the hurricane. 

The history of Tarpon Springs was all about the sponge(1) business. A Greek immigrant recruited Greek sponge divers to Tarpon Springs to more efficiently ply the sponges. This changed Tarpon Springs to a hotbed of Greek culture. A local told us that “the Greeks own everything here.” 

This boat was laden with natural sponges. Our little slip was adjacent to the commercial sponge fleet.

Not far from Greek Town we admired a cluster of turn-of-the-century Queen Anne homes in the small inlet called Tarpon Spring. We spotted a gentle manatee with a local who lived in one of the homes across the street. As he waved to neighbors strolling by, he told us of the strong community in his small town. 

One of the stately turn-of-the-century homes along the inlet called Tarpon Spring.

CLEARWATER

Next, we put the brakes on Sacagawea in Clearwater. We planned to hold Sacagawea at this secure marina near Tampa airport. This enabled us to confidently leave Sacagawea and fly back to Tucson and San Diego to be with family for Christmas. 

After we returned, we stayed through New Year’s Eve to spend relaxed days with our game-playing Looper friends. Yes, we stayed up on New Year’s Eve because the fireworks went off at midnight. It was spectacular. It seemed important, somehow, to ring in the 2025 New Year. There will be a lot of changes for Mike and I (and perhaps the U.S. too?) in the next 12 months. 

We crossed Clearwater Bay to checkout Clearwater Beach. It was a hot day. And, it was December 30, during a tourist-heavy week. I never experienced a beach anywhere with so many people. My experience at California and Pacific Northwest beaches have been much more chill.

Our tourist stop in Clearwater was at the Ringling “Palace.” It was an art museum housed at the unique palatial home of one of the Ringling Circus brothers. We’ve seen a lot of European art, and to be frank, I would characterize the art as the B-side. 

The home’s style was “Venetian Gothic,” something like you’d see in Venice. Being in Florida it also employed a liberal use of pink.

One of the art pieces in the Ringling Museum. Mike and I were wondering why this was important for us to see.  

A part of the museum included refurbished circus wagons. They were colorful and imaginative like you might see on an old merry-go-round.

ST. PETERSBERG

Per usual, I had no idea what to expect from St. Petersberg, Florida, except for a gushing description from resident Looper friends. They couldn’t believe we were thinking of skipping “St. Pete.” So we planned a two-night stay in a protected anchorage and spent our time entirely with the gracious supervision of our friends. 

Our first stop in daylight was The Dali Museum. Our local friends loved it so much that they were museum members. We greatly enjoyed our afternoon there as well. 

Based on what I heard and have read, Dali struck me as a supremely confident man, who enjoyed challenging his viewers, and cultivated unlimited creativity. For example, Dali made a cool picture mosaic(2) of Abraham Lincoln in 1973. Like much of his celebrated art, it incorporated symbolism of life, death and love for his wife, Dala. Our tour group stared at this work for a while as our docent explained what made this large art work extraordinary. 

This was a close up view of Dali’s 8 x 6 feet “Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko).”

At a further distance, our docent helped us to see the second way of viewing the art as, in fact, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

“Morphological Echo” reflected Dali’s common themes of dreams, psychoanalysis, memory, Dali’s estranged relationship with his father and Catholithism. Many of his paintings made commentary on current cultural or art-making norms. This painting was striking in its detail and regularity, which made us stop and look closer. Dali’s intention? Perhaps so!

Here, in their own niches, were a couple of large format paintings that required us to stand back, like these random visitors, and ponder the symbolism and detail. Everyone around us was clearly enjoying the show.

Ready for something completely different? Our friends were members of the local sports club. It was devoted to shuffleboard! 

What was the largest shuffleboard club in the world like?  

Here’s an old timey pic from circa 1930 on the club’s website. I can confirm it looks about the same today. 

Our friends gave us quick pointers and summarized the rules (like: don’t step on the slippery glass-beaded court!). We observed the smooth styles of our friends and the players on nearby courts around us. Mike successfully imitated their easy and balanced technique:

Even though Shuffleboard had a witty reputation associated with retirees, I admired that our friends decided to join. It was a St. Pete institution. And, no one there took it too seriously. It was easy to learn and, frankly, there was no expensive equipment required (looking at you, skiing) or specific dress (ahem, tennis). The casual competition was, dare I say, fun! 

All eyes were focused on my incredible form. Or so I thought. 

Here was the stadium seating for the world championships. We missed it by two weeks. 

We ended a lively day with a sunset drink at the third floor of the Pier, which was perched at the end of (surprise!) a pier. How it will survive hurricanes on its perch in the future, we couldn’t imagine. We enjoyed the colorful sunset with the rest of crowd. 

We didn’t have enough time to enjoy the loads of bars with live music. St. Pete is definitely a town we could imagine living in (like Charleston and Washington D.C.) that we enjoyed on the Loop. At the very least, we would like to visit it again.

SARASOTA, CAPE CORAL & FT. MYERS

We continued to ply our way down the shallow Intracoastal Waterway on the West coast of Florida. 

In Sarasota, I got to meet a second cousin and his wife for the first time. We shared stories at their favorite local seafood restaurant. Again, I loved meeting East Coast family along the Loop.

At Cape Coral, we anchored outside the large Westin hotel at Tarpon Point. We visited here about ten years ago with our son, A.J. It was fun to return in our very own boat and scoot around in our dinghy, admiring the homes along the manmade lagoon “streets.” 

Just spending the pretty afternoon in our dinghy cruising by a waterfront neighborhood in Tarpon Point/Cape Coral. 

Finally, we ended our Northern city hops at Ft. Myers. We had also been here before—about a year ago. Ft. Myers was hit hard by Hurricane Ian (September 2022) and hasn’t recovered. We walked around the town, which gave us creepy Atlantic City vibes. There were a lot of empty building lots (from torn down and removed buildings) and surprisingly expensive, empty parking lots. We had a couple nice drinks and meals, however, at a Margaritaville and a Doc Ford restaurant. I felt sympathy for the locals, but it seemed like there needs to be more in Mt. Myers than a beach to attract crowds of tourists. 

Pretty much everyday we see an old beached boat or two along the entire Loop. It always reminded me of the danger of storing boats in the water during hurricane season. In Ft. Myers we saw this boat near the center of the photo leaning against the roof of a building on a pier. A little unsettling that no one removed it after all this time. 

NEXT STOPS: NAPLES AND THE KEYS

We looked forward to our old college friend and next guest, Kevin Melton, for our trek down to Key West. I had been to the Keys a couple times. But never by boat.

FOOTNOTES FOR FUN FACT FANS

(1) Sponges are actually animals—described as the most base of animals. If you wash with a natural (not manmade) sponge, you are using an antibacterial material. The maze of tubes and holes in sponges allow them to dry completely, making them an unfriendly medium for bacteria. 

(2) While there have been tile mosaics for thousands of years, Dali used a neural recognition approach in 1973 (riffing on Leon Harmon’s work) using very large mosaic squares which force the viewer to stand dozens of feet back to see the whole picture. His use of mosaics this way was revolutionary. There are automated tools now for you to make a photo mosaic of your own.