Across the Gulf of Mexico

We spent two days at the town dock in Apalachicola.  It was a nice stop.  Apalachicola has several small shops as well as several restaurants.

We had some great oysters at The Station Raw Bar, an old gas station converted into a restaurant.

We also got to see Santa come to town via shrimp boat.

Here comes the Jolly Elf

Santa came to the dock right in front of Southern Style.

There were a few people waiting to see him.

From Apalachicola, we continued to make our way east along the panhandle.  By Saturday Nov. 24th we found ourselves in  Carrabelle, Florida poised to make a run across the Gulf of Mexico to Tarpon Springs, FL.  

View from our spot at the dock in Carrabelle, FL

This would be my second Gulf crossing and Captain Keith's 14th.  Sunday morning the 25th we were untied by 7:00 AM and heading out the inlet.  Our crossing was very good.  Wind was fairly light and the ride was very comfortable.  There were soft, rolling swells about 2-3 feet and pretty far apart which were not bad at all.  We ran about 23-24 mph across and were at the inlet at Tarpon Springs in 6 hours and 15 minutes.  This put us into the intracoastal waterway by 1:30 PM and tied up in Dunedin, FL by 2:30 PM.

View from our spot at the dock in Dunedin, FL

Sunset Sunday Nov. 25th Dunedin, FL

Monday, Keith and I rented a car for a few days to explore the area.  Our first outing took us into downtown Tarpon Springs (just 8 miles north of Dunedin) to walk around the Sponge Docks, see the Heritage Museum, and have lunch.

The Tarpon Springs Heritage Museum is inexpensive and has a nice section all about the sponge industry and history of Tarpon Springs.  They also have a short movie about the sponge industry that we watched.

  Sponge harvesting in Tarpon Springs began around the mid 1870s when fishermen and seasonal turtlers discovered offshore sponge beds by accident.  Locals soon began harvesting the sponges using a large boat (the mothership) and a team of smaller boats or dinghies carried on or trailed behind the mothership.  The small boats, usually powered by oars, would work their way through the gulf water at about 20-40 feet of depth.  The sponger would peer through the water using a glass-bottomed bucket to site sponges.  Then using lightweight poles with grapples or hooks on the end that could reach the gulf's floor, they would hook the sponges and haul them into the boat.  Upon reaching capacity in the small boats, the two man crew would row to the mothership and transfer their harvest to the larger vessel.  Once onboard the mothership, the sponges were cleaned and dried to prevent rotting.  When the mothership was filled, her harvest was unloaded to shoreline kraals for more cleaning, processing, snipping and pruning before going to market.  John Cheyney is probably the most influential man of the Tarpon Springs sponge industry.  Cheyney established the Anclote and Rock Island Sponge Company in 1891 and constructed the earliest sponge warehouses in Tarpon Springs.  He also employed a Greek sponge buyer, John Cocoris.  Cocoris in tern launched the first mechanized sponge boat from Tarpon Springs and used sponge divers instead of hooking sponges.  Sponge diving was being used in the Mediterranean since the advent of the diving helmet and suit.  This method significantly increased productivity of sponge harvesting on the Gulf Coast.  Cocoris soon brought his wife and brothers from Greece to Tarpon Springs.  This in tern led to large numbers of other Greek sponge divers and their families coming to Tarpon Springs to live and work.  They brought with them their knowledge, culture, traditions, and religion.  By 1905 over 500 Greek sponge divers were working in Tarpon Springs.  

Some historical pictures I photographed of Tarpon Springs sponge industry

Tarpon Springs Sponge Harvest 1980s

As advances were made in dive equipment, sponge harvesting continued to prosper.  For some 30 years, the sponge industry was Florida's biggest industry- larger than citrus or tourism.  Tarpon Springs became known as the Sponge Capital of the World.  In the 1940s, blight severely reduced the sponge population on the Gulf and by 1950 the sponge industry was nearly wiped out.  Luckily in the 1980s, new sponge beds were discovered and they continue to thrive.  Tarpon Springs again has a prosperous sponge market.  The Greek culture is also a great asset to the town with many wonderful Greek restaurants and shops.

Keith and I actually got to see a sponge boat unloading even through the season is not in right now.

Sponge season peak is about May through October

Pretty cool, real sponges

Here are some wall tile pictures I thought were cool.  These were on the side of two buildings along the sponge docks

Statue honoring sponge divers at the sponge docks in Tarpon Springs

We of course had to do Greek for lunch.  We had saganaki ( fried cheese appetizer), Greek salad, and gyros (beef and lamb with tzatziki sauce wrapped in flatbread) at a place just off the sponge docks.  It was very good.

Pengi posing with my gyro

After that lunch we were to full for desert.  There are several Greek bakeries in the area.  We are definitely going to have to sample something from them before we leave the area.  Our plan is to spend the week here so we should have plenty of time for more Greek food and more exploring.  Stay tuned.

Happy Thanksgiving

We left Pensacola on Tuesday November 20th and found a marina in Sandestin, FL.  Baytown Marina had a great location with numerous restaurants and a resort.  It was too bad we only spent an overnight there, as it looked like there was plenty of things to do, but we were on a mission to head east.  Wednesday November 21st we moved from Sandestin, FL to Panama City, FL.  This is where we purchased Southern Style 2 years ago and therefore officially crossed our wake and became "Gold Loopers".  It is also where Hurricane Michael came ashore and did quite a bit of damage.  There were no marinas open so we picked a little anchorage for the night. 

The pictures below show some of the destruction we saw in the area.  Our hearts go out to the people of the area.  It will be quite a long time to recover from this devastation.

Homes had windows blown out and roof damage all around us.

Trees were stripped bear of leaves and blown over

There were also boats of all sizes that were half sunken or washed ashore.

In spite of the destruction, we had a pretty sunset at our anchorage in Panama City.

Thanksgiving Day we pulled up anchor and were continuing east by 7:15 AM.  We pulled up to the city docks in Apalachicola around 3:00 PM and I fired up the stove and began our meal.  I had a smoked turkey to prepare and also made gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce and apple cobbler.  Seeing all the hurricane damage, we know we have so much to be thankful for.

Pengi dressed for the holiday in his red scarf and ready for turkey

This was our spot near the palm tree at the Apalachicola City Docks

They are ready for Christmas with their tree decorated with floats

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving with friends and family.

Pensacola, FL

I arrived back to Southern Style on Saturday November 17th after my trip to Lancaster, PA.  The weather in Pensacola was very pleasant with sunny skies and temperatures in the low 70's.  Saturday and Sunday were spent catching up with some laundry and relaxing.  Monday Keith and I rented a car for the day to do some exploring.

Pensacola was first settled by the Spanish in 1559.  The location of Pensacola south of the original British colonies and near French Louisiana and other Spanish settlements in Florida caused Pensacola to change ownership several times.  Pensacola was Spanish, then French, then Spanish, British, then Spanish again, before becoming American, then Confederate, and finally the United States city it is today.

The Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola is the home of the Blue Angels.  There is also a great aviation museum on base.  After picking up the rental car we went over to see it.  There are over 150 aircraft, representing the Navy, Marines and Coast Guard all on display.  Every imaginable flying machine seems to be represented at the museum.  Ron Terry would have been in heaven here.

National Naval Aviation Museum

There are several interactive theaters on the museum grounds.  In one of the theaters you can experience in 3D what it is like to fly with the Blue Angels.  Another theater has several different films that are shown about aviation.  The theater is state-of-the-art with a high tech lasar-illuminated digital projector.  This produces images on a giant screen that are 3 1/2 times brighter with more brilliant colors than normal theaters.  Keith and I watched two films; The Magic of Flight and Aircraft Carrier.  We enjoyed both.

The Pensacola Lighthouse is also on the Navy Base.  There have been 3 different lights in the general location with the last built in 1859.  The first was actually a lightship, the Aurora Borealis which was first stationed at the entrance to Pensacola Bay in the early 1820s.  A lighthouse was built for a more stable aid to navigation into the bay in 1824.   By the 1850s this lighthouse needed upgrading and to be taller, so another lighthouse was built about 1/2 mile to the west and increased to a height of 159 feet.  It was illuminated New Years Day 1859 and is the lighthouse that can be toured today.  The structure has seen a lot of history, from Confederate occupation in 1861 and an artillery battle that November between the Confederates in the lighthouse and nearly Fort Pickens occupied by the Union.  Six artillery shells hit the lighthouse during the skirmish, but caused mostly minor damage.  The lighthouse was twice hit by lightening, first in 1874 and again the next year in 1875.  Then in 1886 it was shaken by an earthquake.  The Great Charleston Earthquake was so severe that the vibrations could be felt here in Pensacola.  The lighthouse keeper at the time said it shook and sounded like several hundred people stomping up the stairs of the lighthouse.  With all these strains over the years, several cracks did develop in the structure and it was repaired and upgraded from top to bottom.  One hundred years later the lighthouse was put on the National Register of Historic Places.

Pensacola Lighthouse

You can see the Blue Angels hanger with their support plane Fat Albert parked on base from the lighthouse.

The view out over Pensacola Bay is also pretty from the lighthouse.

Going down the stairs was easier than going up

Pensacola Bay provides a well protected harbor and for this reason it was a key spot for early settlements.  As I mentioned above, several countries have claimed ownership of the region and all have built forts to protect the entrance to the bay.  Fort Barrancas is on the Naval Air Station base and was built by the American Army Corps of Engineers over the ruins of a late 17th century Spanish fort in 1844.  It has over 6 million bricks forming walls 4 feet thick and 20 feet high.  It is in the shape of a diamond with 2 sides facing the bay, and 2 sides facing the land.  The fort saw action during the War of 1812 and the American Civil War.  It is now open to the public for self guided tours.  Captain Keith and I had planned to walk around the fort on Monday, but we got a delayed start picking up the rental car and did not have time once we toured the Naval Air Museum and Lighthouse.  Pengi came along but had to stay in the car.  Due to being on an active military base, security was a little tight.  They even asked people to leave purses in the car.  Poor Pengi.   Maybe next time.

A Week in Lancaster, PA

Saturday November 10th I flew to Lancaster, PA to visit with family.  It had been 6 months since seeing my mom, sister, nephew, nieces and brother-in-law.  Being away from them is one of the more challenging things about living aboard the boat and traveling so much.  It was great to be there for the week.  I got to do a lot of things with everyone and helped mom do some shopping and a few things around her house.  Here is a sampling of what went on during the week.

Lancaster is known for its farms and the large Pennsylvania German population that live in the area.  They have their origins as a somewhat radical wing of the Protestant Reformation movement actually from Zurich, Switzerland in 1525.  Today there are over 25 different Pennsylvania German groups including Amish, Mennonite, Brethren, and Hutterites with many subgroups within these.  They are also known as "Plain People".  These farmers are different from most American farmers, by choice.   In general, they believe  worldliness can keep them from being close to God, and can introduce influences that could be destructive to their communities and way of life.  Family, faith, and farm are their priorities, and they choose to lead a very simple life much as their forefathers did.

This farm was having an event (possibly a farm sale or family event) and there were many buggies parked in the field the weekend I arrived at my mom's.

Wash hanging out is a very common site.  Hope these folks did not think I was some kind of stalker taking pictures of their laundry.

Old Country Store (It was Sunday and closed).  No one works on Sunday here.

Farmer's Market that I love to get meats when visiting

There are also some very unique town names.  Intercourse actually has one of my favorite quilting stores.

Of course if there are horses and buggies, there also needs to be places to fix the buggies.  Not the typical auto repair shops.

Coaches (buggies) waiting for repairs.

One day we took my nieces to Sturgis Pretzel's for a little outing.  Emily (5 years old) is on the left and Alison (8 years old) is on the right.

Sturgis Pretzel's in Lititz, PA was the first and is the oldest commercial pretzel bakery in the US.  The bakery was started by Julius Sturgis in 1861 as a regular bakery offering all manner of baked goods. Using a traditional pretzel recipe of French Monks, Julius produced the typical soft pretzel of the time, however he found that by baking the pretzels a little longer and letting them dry; the product had a fun crunch and a longer shelf life.  People liked the hard pretzels so much, Julius eventually began producing only pretzels in his bakery.   The rest, as they say, is history.  The "Pretzel Bakery" was tremendously successful and it has remained in the family ever since.  The bakery is now much, much larger and located in Reading, PA; but the original house and bakery are on the National Registry of Historic Places and open for tours.  The home was actually built in 1784 by Peter Kreiter and is one of the first homes built in Lititz, PA.  It is a cute little slice of Americana.

Here are my nieces learning to twist a pretzel.  Don't tell their mom that they each had samples to eat during the tour.  Hope it did not ruin their dinner.

Thursday the 15th I went to see my youngest niece's school Thanksgiving concert.  She is the one in the middle of the front row that is not wearing a turkey outfit.  She said she did not want to cover up the squirrel on the front of her pink shirt with the turkey.  Kids :)

During the concert it began to snow, and it kept snowing much of the day.  Record early snow gave 8 inches at the nearby Harrisburg Airport.

Me making a snowball on mom's deck and wishing I had brought Pengi to enjoy the winter weather.

View behind mom's townhouse, winter wonderland.

About 5 1/2 inches in Lancaster

On my last day in Lancaster, my sister, mom, and I went to a pottery place and tried our hands at doing some painting.  We are far from professionals, but worth it for a few laughs and some fun.

My sister, Jessica, (Jess to all of us) and I doing our best with the brushes and paints.

Product ready to be fired in the kiln.  (Let us know if anyone wants a signed reproduction.  :)

The week went much too fast, but hopefully I will be back again in the spring at some time as we are going up the east coast.