January 5th: Still in Tarpon Springs

After a few hours sleep yesterday, we biked over to the main street of Tarpon Springs. What a place! It's also known as the Greece of Florida! Many, many restaurants - mostly Greek and seafood. We went to the recommended place and I decided to try something new: soft shell crab sandwich. Not sure I would do that again!

This is the sponge capital of the world (at least it seems like it). Apparently it was the Greeks who came here settled the area and dove for the sponges. There were several sponge boats, lots of sponge shops and the usual assortment of tourist shops. And Greek bakeries! So far we have managed to stay away from them. There is also a statue right by the dock that pays tribute to the sponge divers - it was kind of neat.

After recovering from the night of no sleep, we headed out to enjoy what is our first day of really nice weather (sunny in 70's) since I can't remember when. It's more like the Florida we've been expecting! Our long time friends from Galion days, Paul and Miriam, happened to be in Tampa (just south of here) visiting their son and family so it was really good to see them. We were very glad they came to see us! Of course we had to go to the seafood place for lunch so everyone could get their fish fix (on the many vacations we have taken with them, it's been a real struggle for me to get them to eat anything but seafood so this is not new :-) )

In checking the price of diesel fuel at the main dock, one of the gentlemen working there told me we needed to go see the manatee that were about 1/4 mile down the road. Paul and Miriam stopped on their way out to see them and called to say we really should check it out. So off we went on our bikes. There were about 8 manatee that we could see. They just seem to lay on the bottom and every minute or so will stick their nose out to breathe - back down they go. Steve was able to capture a couple of noses in a picture. I just watched.

I went back to the boat while Steve when to the grocery store. Once again he returned with a backpack full of supplies plus a bag tied to the backpack - good thing he can carry a lot of stuff!