Sponges, Glass, and Seashells

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Wow it was 50 in the trailer this morning, actually needed the heater to warm it up a little.  We have enjoyed our stay at Rock Crusher.  Each shower and toilet were in their individual room, so it was like your private bathroom.  It was unisex, so had to remember to drop the lid!

The only aggravation we had was a little plant called a Sand Spur.

 

See those little picky things?  They stick to anything that touches them and the picky things are stiff and really hurt when they get in your sandals, toes, and fingers.  They grow only in sand, and are “in bloom” in the fall.  Errrrr!!!  They were all over our camp site.  If they had run the lawnmower over our site before our arrival it would have helped.

Our next stop is Clearwater.  The park is called the Clearwater Travel RV Resort.  Beautiful landscaping, concrete pad, all the amenities.  Well the landscaping was beautiful.  Because the grass was wet and soft from Saturdays big rain it now bears some sizable ruts where we backed in.  We feel really bad about it.  

After getting setup we decided on two things to do.  Get a DQ Blizzard, we are junkies, and then visit Tarpon Springs.   Probably a little known fact, Tarpon Springs is one of the busiest fishing ports in Florida and the only sponge harvesting area in the US.  The town is primarily Greek and diving for sponges is their gig.  They used to use hard helmet diving, now its like scuba, but with air lines and weighted boots.

Sponge is harvested using a hand manipulated rake.  If firmly attached to rock or coral, the sponges are cut.  They grow back and do so within 3 to 5 years. Each must be 5 inches or larger to take.  The sponges then go through a drying and washing process to remove the membrane that coats them.  The sponge is actually a skeleton.   They are more durable than synthetic sponges and hold far more water.  As the pictures show, there are many types and shapes.

The town centers around the sponge docks and loaded with Greek restaurants and gift shops.  It reminded us of Mackinaw City and Leeland, though they are not Greek.  There is a really big store called the sponge factory.   They sell just about every size and type of sponge here.

The boat shown below are part of the sponge fleet. 

Monday, October 6, 2014

It was a cool and cloudy start today, so we thought we would go into St. Petersburg to see The Chihuly Collection and the Morean Glass Gallery & Hot Shop. Conveniently, downtown parking was cheap and a downtown trolley/bus took you around for 25 cents per stop.

Dale Chihuly is an artist that uses molten glass as his media.  His work is really unique.  We first saw some of his work in a large ceiling display at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.  His works have also been in Phoenix, but after our visit a couple years back.  Its hard to describe his work, but once you see it you will not forget it.  The collection in St. Petersburg is presented by the Morean family, who has several galleries in St. Petersburg.

The pieces are lighted externally in a way that the light plays off the colors and shapes.  The following pictures do not do justice to them.

Pretty neat aren’t they?  We recommend anytime you have an opportunity to see Chihuly’s work, do so.

A few blocks away is the Morean Gallery and Hot Shop.  The Hot shop does glass blowing demos every hour.  It was one of the most interesting glass blowing demos we have seen, a couple of pictures follow.

This link will take you to a video of the demonstration.

Morean Hot Shop Glass Blowing Demo

The gallery had some really neat pieces for sale, although tempted we passed them by.

Tuesday October 7, 2014

A day at the beach!  We went up to Honeymoon Island State Park.  Supposed to be one of the top ten beaches in the US, according to the brochure. The Park is pretty cool and has lots of history.  It got its name from the original owner who built honeymoon cabanas out of grass to give it that tropical island feel.  It did not do well, so the State of Florida acquired it.

Top 10 beach it isn’t, and we’ve seen a couple right?  Beach is short, rocky and water gets deep very quickly off shore.  It seems to be pretty popular though, as quite a few visited today.  Gulf Beach SP in Alabama has it beat.

We decided to take a look at Clearwater Beach, which we did out the window as we drove by.  Nice white sand, but at $3/hour to park, no maximum, we didn’t stop.  We ended up at Sand Key, a Pinellas County Park.  Nice wide beach, lots of shells, although small.  So we wandered along picking up shells.  We agreed we wouldn’t do that, we have tons of shells, but hard to resist!