St. Nicholas Boat Line, Tarpon Springs
My research into activities to do in Tarpon Springs other than shopping and dining produced little results. The most attractive options were the short boating excursions. Every coastal town has these tours and the reviews for the ones in Tarpon Springs were mixed. However, one tour stood out from the others: St. Nicholas Boat Line.
St. Nicholas Boat Line Sponge Diving Exhibition wasn’t like the Odyssey or Spongeorama Cruises which offered dolphin sighting opportunities and trips to Anclote Key for shell hunting. The focus of the St. Nicholas tour was on the sponge fishing history of the town. The reviews made the reader well informed that the boat would never leave Anclote River, but that wasn’t the point. St. Nicholas wasn’t a pleasure cruise for tourists on a three-hour tour, it was an hour(ish)-long educational demonstration on a boat, which we found pleasurable.
The St. Nicholas Boat Line – Sponge Diving Exhibition
693 Dodecanese Blvd
Tarpon Springs, FL 34688
Phone: (727) 942-6425
Hours: 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Daily
Tickets: $10.00 each
http://stnicholasboatline.com
After our morning walk about the Tarpon Springs sponge docks we headed over to buy our tickets and board the boat: The St. Nicholas IV. Two older gentlemen welcomed us aboard and we claimed spots on the fixed benches that lined the port and starboard sides. I noticed an old canvas diving suit that was laid over a bench and an old brass diving helmet was perched on a coil of rubber hose.
We waited a bit in the pleasant shade of the boat’s wooden canopy while a cool breeze washed over us. It was good to get this burned skin out of the sun. Soon a younger man boarded and picked up the diving suit.
I watched with genuine intrigue as he pulled the awkward suit onto his bottom half, then retrieved two boots from a bucket of water. They were flat wooden soles with simple leather uppers and rusty iron heels and toecaps. The boots are soaked to prevent the wood from drying and splitting. He laced one up as one of the older men helped lace the other.
Then, he put some Dawn detergent onto his hands and lathered them up before rising to pull the upper part of the suit up over his head to get his hands into the arms and through the tight rubber cuffs. He rinsed off the remaining dish soap and the two older men set to installing the heavy brass neck-piece.
The neckpiece was a collar of heavy brass that sandwiched the collar of the suit with thick brass plates and large wingnuts. Because of the weight and quantity of the parts the whole ordeal took twenty minutes. Watching him transform from modern Joe into Captain Nemo made the time spent waiting for straggling passengers fly by.
Next, the men lashed more heavy plates to his chest and back and cinched the suit under his arms with a thick cord of rope, The diver then moved to the bow of the ship and awaited the later steps that would come once we left port and arrived at the diving spot.
Finally, with all the guests aboard, the rest of the crew joined us and we set off for the not so open seas. The boat doesn’t leave the Anclote River, it merely chugs along toward the mouth.
Our guide cracked on the mic, introduced himself and gave a brief overview of the St, Nicholas Boat Line and its purpose to teach and maintain the legacy of the Greek Sponge Diving Community of Tarpon Springs by explaining the history, methods, and details of the sponge fishing industry of the Gulf coast of Florida.
We had just learned much of the material in his presentation that very day from the unrelated film we watched at Spongeorama. Still, the tour new and different material and local facts. And in the context of a live demonstration, I found myself more receptive to the material and very much entertained.
The boat carried us downstream on the river while the guide continued his well-delivered talk with visual aids. The crewman eased the heavy brass helmet onto the diver as we neared the harvest bed. These were not the actual beds that are two hours out into the Gulf but a seedbed still in the Anclote River used just for the demonstration. The guide brought the boat to rest (28 09 31.20, -82 46 04.43), the anchor was dropped and compressed air rushed into the diver’s suit inflating him like Bibendum and he dropped over the side.
He floated for a bit before adjusting the suit pressure and sinking below the depths. Then we watched his trail of bubbles as he walked across the river bed rising to chest deep at the shallows. It was eerie watching him emerge from the water like an alien from a ‘50’s sci-fi horror show. He simulated the movements he would do underwater, the walking with heavy steps in search of the rooted sponges, using his rake as a gauge to determine they meet the legally regulated harvest minimum, and then using the rake to pluck the creature from the bed, leaving a bit behind to regrow into another sponge.
We followed his bubble path as he walked back underwater to the boat where he climbed up the ladder—paused to pose for pics—and brought aboard the sponge. It was a little bigger than a softball and coated in a black slippery membrane. The cleaning process would remove this and turn the living sponge into the dried skeleton we know and love as our body washers and car wipers.
Athe close of the demonstration, they opened the floor to questions. Because I had read the Tripadvisor reviews, I knew what was coming next. One of the older men retrieved a plastic shoebox that held packets of postcards. He then passed these around to each guest. (Knowing the deal, I told him that my wife and I would only need one.) He then signaled the tour guide to explain the deal: These postcards were available to purchase for $1 if you liked them. If not, they took them back with no questions asked or guilt implied. It was simply a way to help fund the program.
I agree with commenters that there may be a better way of doing this. One alternative is to explain beforehand that souvenir postcards would be passed around for a one dollar purchase. Perhaps fewer people would feel like they had been scammed. And I’ll bet that just as many people would buy them as did the other way. As it was, a dollar was no big deal and I paid it gladly.
I also had the diver autograph the diver postcard. It was hokey but in good fun. We then tipped a small amount to the diver and the crew. This is voluntary for them and I appreciated the info and the effort. It was the single most interesting thing we experienced in Tarpon Springs Sponge Docks.
As I stated, the St. Nicholas Boat Line Tour is not a pleasure cruise, but that doesn’t make it unpleasurable. There are other cruise lines on the docks that are less historically oriented. They are 45-minute jaunts to Anclote Key for 30 minutes of shell hunting followed by a 45-minute jet back to the docks. You might see dolphins, you might not. You might get wet, you might not. But those tours are twice the price and with less substance, I’d surmise. It’s your twenty bucks.
We enjoyed the tour and if history and exhibits on how things work interest you, I suspect you’d enjoy it, too. If you find yourself in Tarpon Springs, I say take the St. Nicholas Boat Line Exhibition tour. It’s a singular and memorable experience.