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A Boater's Walk Around Tarpon Springs

by Skip Randall

Skip and Nehalennia are spending the summer of 2003 in Tarpon Springs--the sponge capital of the world! Here is his cruiser's eye view of a walk around this quiet little town on Florida's Gulf Coast.

It's high noon, and too hot and stuffy to stay in the boat on this muggy first day of July.  So let's get off the boat and walk about. It’s still muggy outdoors but the slight breeze blowing in from the gulf is helpful (sweat + airflow=cooling, the prime equation of the tropical south). 

Along the wooden dock we go, and silently greet some of the locals;  "Al," the 5-foot alligator who lives in the muddy shallows between the mangroves and the dock, a few snowy egrets and a little green heron plying the mudflats for lunch, and the great blue heron who "owns" the reed-lined mudflat just east of the dock gate. As we cross the parking lot, a mating pair of ospreys is guarding their huge nest in the tree next to the office.

We walk up Anclote Road to "the highway", Alternate Highway 19, the north-south main drag.  Halfway along the half-mile trek to the junction, we're sticky with sweat, and the above mentioned formula notwithstanding, we're hot, really hot.  So when we get to the highway we enter the air-conditioned oasis of the beer joint at the corner, "Eagle's Nest Lounge".  Inside, it's kind of a weird scene for this boat bum;  the bar stools are fashioned from alloy racing wheels welded together, the ashtrays are little replicas of Goodyear racing tires, and the big screen over the bar shows nonstop replays of famous NASCAR races, like last year's unforgettable (at least in here) Winston 500, complete with spectacular crashes. 

We have a whopping three choices of drafts;  Bud, Bud Light, and Miller High Life.  We opt for the Miller, and even that bland brew tastes cold and agreeable as the 20 ounces (at $2, what a deal) goes down fast and easy.  But this is just a pit stop, a quickie for medicinal rehydration and core cooling purposes, so out the door we go...into what seems like a giant sauna after the 10 minutes of A/C bliss.  But press on we must if we hope to see the city, and it's a city in which "lounges" and cold beer abound. 

Up and over the Anclote River bridge (downstream from the real Tarpon Spring, as in cold fresh water percolating up from the earth), we're soon at the corner of Alt. Hwy. 19 and Dodecanese Drive.  We hang a right and stroll down the area known as "the sponge docks".  And the first big clue is...sponges, everywhere, thousands of 'em, virtually lining the sidewalks in baskets, nets, bins, hanging from the eaves, from 2-inch cuties to 3-foot monsters, all for sale. 

Almost as ubiquitous as the sponge vendors are the Greek bakeries, at least one per block, sometimes two.  The sweet aroma of bread and baklava wafts out to the sidewalk, and the pull is irresistable, so we pop in for a slice of almost too sweet baklava.  To the right as we walk down Dodecanese is the Anclote River and the dock area, with sponge diving and fishing boats with unpronounceable (by me anyway) Greek names. 

Presiding over the sponge dock stands the statue of the generic nameless "Sponge Diver" in his diving suit and hardhat helmet tucked under his right arm, smiling down at the tourists, terns and seagulls.  They still hardhat-dive for the sponges as they did 100 years ago when the Greek immigrants started the industry here.  And today the divers, boat owners, captains and most deckhands are the descendants of those original Greek immigrants.  The main drag, Dodecanese (named after one of the larger Greek isles) is decidedly touristy, with abundant pink conch shells, those sponges, and the usual assortment of crapola like imported shell necklaces, coconut shell chatzkes, tee shirts, et cetera.  I'm sure that you could easily score a sponge diver snow globe (a diver in a snow flurry...weird). 

And if you want Greek food, boy are you in the right place!  You can choose from a multitude of great restaurants, from tiny mom&pop jobbers to large and glitsy with belly dancers and lively Greek music (opah!). 

Before we turn off Dodecanese onto one of the side streets, let me say that although this main drag is touristy with all the obligatory souvenir trinket hawking, it's somehow not overdone.  And with the mix of genuine Greek ambiance (like the bakeries and gyro stands, let alone the overheard conversations), the overall effect is, at least to me, oddly pleasant.  It's a great venue for taking a sidewalk table, munching a felafel pita sandwich, quaffing a mythos (a greek lager), and doing some serious people watching. 

So we turn off Dodecanese and go down Athens Street. Note the transition from the aforementioned semi-tacky tourist gauntlet to the more basic, dogs and kids in the street, "(pita) bread and butter" side of the Greek village/sponge dock area, and some authentic local color.  We see old men sitting on folding chairs under the store awnings, smoking, occasionally talking (in Greek), and generally just watching the world go by.  And on these side streets you'll find the majority of the small mom&pop restaurants.  One such place is my favorite, the Dodecanese Bakery and Cafe, where the avgolemeno soup and the spanikopita are heavenly and inexpensive.

But for today's lunch, I have a special treat in mind, and it doesn't happen to be Greek cuisine.  So we turn off Athens and on to Arfarus Street, where we enter under the fishnet-festooned portal to the Lime 'N Coconut Bar and Grill.  Here we have more blessed relief from the heat, with ice cold beer and the best grouper sandwiches in all of Florida, served up with tangy homemade coleslaw.  We order up a couple of  Foster's drafts and order our sandwiches.  No tourists in this backstreet joint, just locals who all seem to know each other, and I guess if I hang around here long enough I may eventually achieve "honorary temporary local" status.  At least I'm not (ugh) a tourist.  After a second round of Fosters to wash down the last of those wonderful grouper sandwiches, we steel ourselves for the onslaught of the real atmosphere outside and bravely open the door.

Bellies full of grouper and slaw and with a socially acceptable level of beer buzz, we cross Alt. Hwy. 19 and enter what's known as "the historic district" (i.e. "not sponge docks") of Tarpon Springs.  Here antique shops and secondhand bookstores abound, plus there's an Irish pub just down the street from the huge Greek Orthodox church, and the outstanding public library, and...more eateries, including Zeke's (featuring Greek, Italian, Caribbean and Creole cuisines).  Given to excesses today ("what the hell, we're sweating it off"), we respond to the two part siren song of Millie's ice cream parlor (A/C plus homemade ice cream). 

Back on the street, we browse around in the shops for a while, then head back toward the highway.  As we're in no real hurry to get back to the stuffy boat, we impulsively pop into the Oxford House English Tea Room for afternoon tea, some refined and astute conversation ("quite, quite, old chap") and of course,  the 75 degree dehumidified artificial habitat, aaahhh.  After some delightful ("quite") earl grey and some lovely tea biscuits, we grudgingly leave the fine habitat and decide it's wisest to head back before the late afternoon thundershowers hit. 

So we hang a right at the highway and head north, past the "Bridge Lounge" (a darker, smokier, seedier version of it's northern sibling, the Eagle's Nest lounge; no NASCAR here, just red naugahyde barstools and a coin-op pool table).  The two lounges bracket the bridge like a pair of really weird bookends.  Up and over the Anclote River bridge we go, hang a left on Anclote Road and soon we're back home at Anclote Isles Marina.  

Well fed and full of beer and tea (I know, I know, a weird combo, but this strange yet endearing town seems to encourage weirdness and enigmatic combinations, like the "Neptune Bicycle Shop and Lounge", side by side, same owner and management...so you can easily buy a bicycle then pop in next door for a vodka and tonic), we sit a while, sweat and sip diet cokes in the cockpit of Nehalennia, and reflect on what a lovable place this little speck on Florida's Suncoast is.

So ends our walk through Tarpon Springs, Florida.  And if you want a real live tour of this charming place, come on out (down? over?) here and be my guest.  I'd love to show you around, and you'll leave well fed!

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