Started this year with an epiphany – well, not really but in Tarpon Springs there is a ceremony, among the sponge diving community, in which a priest throws a cross into the bay and the young boys dive to see who can recover it.
This statue commemorates that – it occurs on the day of the Epiphany in January. Tarpon Springs is populated by people who emigrated from Greece and who founded a sponge diving industry here in the US .
The mural depicts an early type of diving – where the diver would have air delivered via a hose but little else.
The diver monument depicts the full diving suit.
We visited tarpon Springs with friends – one of whom exhibited a keen interest in the sponges.
As many of you know, MK & I volunteer to work at the 12 hour auto race that occurs here in Sebring each March. This week, at the Sebring Airport , was the: U.S. SPORT AVIATION EXPO . Friends had volunteered to help and asked us if we’d like to do so as well. Always up for something out of the ordinary, we accepted. Our ‘duty area’ was the flightline in front of the main terminal –
MK at the ‘reception table’ and me, I got to drive a 6 passenger golf cart that was used to ferry people from one area to another. Great job for me since I got to talk to lots of people and drive along the planes parked in the area – some were ‘experimental aircraft’…
Sebring and many other airfields in Florida – were created during WWII. Sebring still has it’s original tower from that era!