Evening star., 1925-03-22
FLORIDA SPONGERS
WAGE BITTER FEUD
Resent Greek Divers Meth
ods and Take Law in Own
Hands in Gulf Waters.
BY JOHN COSBY.

By Consolidated Press.
TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. March 21.
Will they all sail home? That is
the question on every lip in the col
ony of Greek sponge fishermen here
today. For the sponge fleet is due
from the first of its four quarterly
cruises and a dead line has been
drawn In gulf waters. That line is
none the less dangerous to cross be-
cause it is unmarked on any map.
The spongers of Key West and the
keys west to Dry Tortugas have de-
cIared the Greek divers shall not
work south of a certain line and
already there have been savage
clashes with boats burned to the
waters edge and sponges stopping in
bloody water. No lives have yet been
lost. but discovery of high bowed.
blue painted Greek sponge boat with
a cross at the peak of the stumpy
foremast on the sponge beds of the
keys is a signal for battle to the
Key West boatmen who ply their long
hooked poles in those waters.
Ask No Aid of Law.
The feud is waged on both sides
without appeal or regard TO the legal
authorities. The Key West spongers
are direct descendants of the English
buccaneers who hunted Spanish gal
Icons in the Gulf in the day of Morgan
and Black Beard. The Greeks are
veterans of the clash of races along
the coasts of the Levant and neither
side is willing to ask outside help.
The feud grows deeper than racial
antipathy. In the first place the Key
West spongers nearly all drag the
sponges from the coral rocks with
ook-shod poles in comparatively
shallow water. The Greeks work in
diving dress. One diver can clean up
in an hour bed which the pole fish
erman would work on for a week.
The Florida law provides that for
eigp, fishermen may not work within
leagues of the coast. But the
Florida keys run 80 miles west Of the
clared they were within their rights
in diving in the blight of the Bay of
Florida so long as they kept miles
from the mainland.
The State has fixed the limit on a
line drawn south from Boca Grande
and so or 90 miles from the mainland
To this extent the Key West fishermen
have the right of II. But right or
wrong regarding national boundaries
makes little difference to either side.
That is the reason the fleet IS being
carefully counted until all of the 93
boats which sailed from this port
three months ago are again at anchor
here.
Coast of Missing Men.
In fact, neither officers of the law
nor any outsiders know much about
what goes on along the Florida coast
from Sarasota south to East Cape. 1t
is a coast of missing men, many of
whom are not anxious to find a port.
The fishing camps built on piles along
tho coast are seldom seen unless the
fishermen want them seen, and they
contain some queer inhabitants.
Questions are seldom asked or
answered, but not boat moves along
that coast but the fishing camps
know of IL and all about its occu-
pants through some queer wireless
system of their own. If the occu-
pants are deemed harmless they may
be shown the camp, invited to supper
and entertained royalty, but 1t is ex-
ceedingly bad form to express sur
prise or make any comment. even If
one meets a bare-footed fisherman
with an oxford accent who reads
Homer and Plato in the original for
his evenings amusement, as happened
to- boat party from st. Petersburg
last week.
Copyright, 1921