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!

Homosassa and Manatees

Friday, October 3, 2014

We arrived in Crystal River yesterday following a short 60 mile drive from Cedar Key.  Sunny and hot so far; although we hear a change is coming.  Our campground is Rock Crusher Canyon RV Resort.  We understand it is the site of an old limestone quarry. Beside the campground is a big entertainment venue that uses the acoustics of the quarry walls.

Today we had a unique experience.  We took a boat tour on the Homosassa River to snorkel in an area that Manatees use as their winter home due to the constant 70 degree water from the springs in this area.  So with wetsuits and snorkeling gear we jumped in.  There were only a few here and the water clarity wasn’t the best due to the heavy rains in the preceding weeks.  But it was pretty cool.

  

Manatees, often called sea cows, grow to about 13 feet in length and can weigh up to 1300 pounds.  They are herbivores and eat up to 10% of body weight in seaweed and other bottom vegetation,  There are very strict power boat operation rules in manatee waters.  The next picture shows an encounter with a boat motor.

 

These guys sleep 10 to 12 hours a day, which is really 20 minutes at a time since they have to surface to breathe.  They cruise at about 5 mph, but can hustle up to 20 mph in a short sprint.   The manatees we encountered were not real friendly and tended to swim away from us.  There are many You-Tube videos showing them up close and personal, but not these guys. The following link will take you to our You-Tube video.

Manatee Swim Video

If you have trouble with the above link, use ctrl+left click as you hover over the link.

Here are a couple other pix you’ll enjoy.

A close encounter with a duck!

Not a Manatee!

Saturday, October 4, 2014

We woke up to some big rain very early this morning.  Once it cleared though it was a perfect day with low humidity and temps in the 70s.  The news calls this a “fall” cold front, we call it RELIEF!!  Its going down to 50 tonight, so finally, no A/C required.

We visited the Ellie Schiller Wildlife State Park today.  It is like a zoo, but really an animal sanctuary as most of the animals have been rescued and have a disability that will not allow them to be released back into the wild.   It is very nicely laid out and contained critters mostly local to Florida.

As you know by now, we like photographing critters, big and small, so here are a few of our favorites from today.

Our next stop was the Yulee Sugar Mill Ruins State Park.  This site was once part of a thriving sugar plantation owned by David Levy Yulee. Yulee was big in Florida politics and was a partner in the Florida Railroad running into Cedar Key.

The park contains the remnants of the once-thriving 5,100-acre sugar plantation.

The remains included a forty-foot limestone masonry chimney, iron gears, and a cane press. The steam-driven mill operated from 1851 to 1864 and served as a supplier of sugar products for southern troops during the Civil War.

We then drove around Homosassa and Crystal River.  Homosassa is a pretty cool little town.  Tomorrow we head for Clearwater.  There is supposed to be some very nice beaches with shelling and snorkeling opportunities.

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Cedar Key–the place time forgot

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

We’ve been in Cedar Key for the last couple of days, so this post will cover our visit here.  Now you probably wonder where is Cedar Key, so we thought it might be a good idea to include a map.

The blue circle is Cedar Key.  It is an island that lies about 3 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico.  You travel across a causeway to get here.  It is a very unique place.  Population is about 700 and the preferred mode of transportation is by golf cart.  The speed limit is 20 mph.  The whole place seems to be paced at that speed.  It is one of the most laid back places we’ve ever visited.  Not much opens before 11AM and by 4PM it’s a ghost town.

The first fact to share is Key vs. Island.  Why isn’t it called Cedar Island?  Well the term Key is Spanish for small island.  Also around here any hunk of land sticking out of the water and made of corral or sand is a key.  Islands are on rocks.

Cedar Key is one of about 13 keys in this area, but you need a boat to visit them.  We took a boat tour yesterday that travelled to several of these keys, which brings up some of the fascinating history of the place.

 

Indians settled here in the 1700s.  A railroad connected Cedar Key, then called Way Key, to the Atlantic Coast in 1861  It was destined to be a major commercial port on the Gulf, shipping goods from here as well as goods from Mexico and South America, but that all changed in 1885 when a competing railroad got built into Tampa.

At this time, 1865, they were harvesting red cedar from nearby Atsena Otie Key.  A mill was built and the red cedar planks were shipped to New York and turned into pencils by the Faber and Eagle Pencil Companies.  Millions of board feet were shipped and pretty much stripped out almost all of the red cedar.  A big hurricane hit Atsena Otie Key in 1896 and finished off the lumbering and mill operation there.  That key was abandoned and everyone moved to Way Key, then incorporated as Cedar Key.

The pier still remains at Atsena Otie Key, now home for birds.

The depletion of red cedar, the development in Tampa, the 1896 hurricane, and the Civil War all pretty much wiped out Cedar Key.  They lost over 1/2 their population.

The people that stayed developed a thriving fishing and oyster industry and Cedar Key was on its way back.  About this same time around 1910, Dr. Daniel Andrews, a dentist from Indianapolis, started a fiber company called the Standard Manufacturing Company.  His process created fibers from the Cabbage Palm that was used in brooms.  Fibers were shipped all over the world. His company employed about 100 people.  He later formed a whisk broom company called Donax.  This continued into the 1950s.  Another hurricane and the development of a synthetic broom fiber wiped out his business and much of Cedar Key, again.

Another hurricane in 1972 knocked out many of the docks.  Just as their fishing economy was coming back, gill netting was outlawed in 1995. Amazingly they have bounced back, now with clam and oyster farming.  About 75% of all clams sold in the US comes from here.  They also provide the clam and oyster seeds for the other 25%.

This town has amazing resilience, considering its population is so small.  It is growing in tourism and many people like the slow pace here for retirement.

Okay, so much for history; we have been traveling around and have found some pretty unique stuff.  Oh yeah, almost forgot, we sampled the best clam chowder we ever had at Tony’s.  It was chosen the World’s best for three years.

For our journey we traded sunscreen for DEET, and we needed it.  Mosquitos were everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                    An Egret                                            The Suwannee River

Yep, saw our first gator today on a nature drive through part of the Lower Suwannee NWR.  Also our first swamp, but we’ll see more when we get to the Everglades.

Also saw another huge spider.  The body of this thing was like 2 inches across. Wow!!

Tomorrow we are off to Homosassa Springs about 60 miles south, still on the coast.  Wait till you see what we have planned there!

St. Andrews State Park- Panama City

Saturday, September 27, 2014

We followed Fla Hwy 98 from Pensacola to here, a distance of about 100 miles.  There were faster ways, but we wanted to have a look at Destin, Fort Walton Beach, and other towns as we drove through.  There seems to be common theme; beach, high rise hotels/condos/apartments, restaurants, and lots of traffic. Maybe off this main drag its more peaceful, not our idea of paradise.

Panama City seems a little less popular, same theme, but less traffic. St. Andrews SP is very nice;a little busy, but it is the weekend.  There is something for everyone here; hiking, biking, wildlife, fishing (by pier or by boat), snorkeling, swimming, or just hangout.  Our site is a nice change from Drifters, much better view, and on a concrete slab.

The beach looking out toward the jetty.

This is a trail along the shores of Gator Lake.  Although we did not see gators, there were plenty of tracks along here.

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Some pretty cool plants and wildlife around here.  Today we thought we would try a little snorkeling.  The shoreline here is protected by a jetty so the waters along the beach are calm.  Into the swim for about 15 minutes and look what shows up.

It may be a bit hard to see, but it’s a Moon Jellyfish.  Our Audubon book says mildly toxic.  The scary thing is we wouldn’t have even seen this guy without a mask.  He was in about 4 feet of water.  By the way,  this picture is taken with Dan’s new waterproof camera acquired over the past year, a Nikon S30.   So you’ll see more of this, hopefully, in future posts.

The other thing this beach had were raccoons.  They seemed to be living in the rocks along the jetty but came out looking for handouts.  These things were bold, like they came onto your beach blanket and would rummage through your stuff looking for food.  We saw people letting them crawl on them.  Geez, these things can be dangerous and could carry rabies or other diseases.  Between the jellyfish and raccoons, we decided to leave.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Yesterday was a washout.  It rained on and off all day, so we decided it would be a good day to do laundry, then get a few groceries.  We were not however hard up enough to go to the Ripley’s Museum.  Instead we came home and played cards for a while.

This morning, we broke camp in the rain to head for Cedar Key.  We travelled Rte 98 which follows the Gulf coast for about 150 miles of our journey.  The weather wasn’t nice, rainy and foggy, but it was still a pretty drive.

We got to Cedar Key about 4PM at our stop for the next couple days.  Raining AGAIN!!!  Supposed to clear some tomorrow.  There are some cool things to see here, so stay tuned.