It’s raining

The forecast calls for rain and gale force winds on the Gulf from Thursday morning through Friday night, with high waves continuing through Saturday . The next part of our trip will be on the ICW, but all that separates that from the Gulf are long skinny “islands” – not much protection from the winds. So I started calling around this morning to see if I could find a slip for us that had power and water hookups where we could stay put until Sunday. Fortunately Tarpon Springs Yacht Club had one slip available and it was less than 10 minutes from the wall we had been tied to. Because of falling tides we needed to get there immediately so we quickly untied and moved to that slip. The people at the yacht club are super friendly and the club is very nice – it should be a nice place to stay for the next few days. They invited us to join them tomorrow night for bingo and we’re welcome to eat in the restaurant, too!

Sponge boats along the river as we headed to the yacht club

Pelicans roosting in mangroves on our way to the yacht club

A couple of the local seafood restaurants have their own fishing/shrimp boats. We plan to have dinner at one of them tomorrow night.

One of our classmates from high school lives in Tarpon Springs, so we got in touch with her yesterday. She and her husband picked us up mid afternoon today and showed us around Tarpon Springs. This is known as the sponge capital of the world so we checked out a couple of sponge shops, bought a few sponges, had a glass of wine at a local wine bar, and finally ended up at a very nice Greek restaurant. Of course it started raining as soon as they picked us up so we didn’t spend much time outside.

Rich and I in front of a statue of a young sponge diver. Michaeleen said it was mandatory that we have our picture taken in front of it – too bad I didn’t open my eyes for the photo 😄

A plaque by the older diver that explains how this came to be such a Greek town and the sponge capital of the world.

Even the bicycle racks are reflections of the town’s heritage – this one is a diving helmet.

I love New Zealand lamb so when I saw it on the menu I had to try it. It had Greek seasonings and was drizzled with olive oil and lots of lemon juice – I made Rich have a bite of it so we can try to replicate it the next time we do lamb chops.

And of course we had to have dessert! This didn’t look so big in the case, but it was enough for at least two people, and it was all mine. I managed to get through half of it -guess what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow???

Tomorrow morning we will get a rental car and explore the area on land for the next couple of days.

Welcome

M/V Prime Meridian on the Great Loop

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