The Indianapolis times., 1936-03-11

from =.
Indiana
ERNIE PYLE

TARPoN SPRINGS, Fla, March
i 1.-THE manager of the
Sponge Exchange took me on
board one of the little boats Just
in from the sponge banks, tied up
at the dock.
The manager was a Greek. All
the men ON the boat were Greeks.
In fact. there are more Greeks
than native Americans in Tarpon
Springs-about 1900 of them.
This is the center of sponge fish
ing in America. It's the biggest
sponge center in the world. Sponges
come only from here and the
Mediterranean. The Greeks have
been fishing for Mediterranean
sponges for 1000 years. 1t was only
natural they should get into the
business here.
Sponge fishing was started here
in 1890 by an early settler named
John Cheyney.
THE boat We went on was little
l. sailing schooner, about so feet
long, with an auxiliary Diesel motor.
Men were sitting on the slippery
wet deck, with buckets of water and
piles of sponges all around them.
They wore boots and had big rubber
aprons over their laps.
A man would take a raw sponge
off the pile, trim off the rough edges
with big knife, dip it into the
bucket of water, and throw it over
to another pile. They were talking
with each other in Greek. Most
of them speak little English.
The boat smells like mushrooms,
the way mushrooms smell out in
the woods, among the dead leaves,
after warm spring rain. The
manager told me the smell is heal
thy, for the sponges are full of TO-
dine and phosphorus.
A sponge, whether you know it
or not, is an animal. You can actu-
ally see it breathing. A sponge as
we know it is just the skeleton left
after the jelly-like body has been
washed away. The sponge fastenS
itself to submerged coral rock, and
grows about half an inch a month
saw one sponge on the boat which
had grown on to huge oyster shell.
The oyster was still in it too.
THERE are about 700 men in the
cv,0,ooa ;,od,,cty1y 1,ora U-1,o ,.oc+
of the 1900 Greeks are their fami-
lies. There are about 100 boats
fishing for sponges.
Each boat carries from four to
| 10 men. They are cut sometimes
as long as two months. They go
sometimes so miles from shore, and
work all the west coast of Florida,
from Key West to Apalachicola.
A few Of the boats still hook"
sponges with long poles but that
is slow and old-fashioned. Most of
the boats carry divers now. They
started using divers in 1905.
The divers wear regular rubber
diving suits, with helmets. They
walk around the bottom and pull
sponges off the rocks and put them
in big sacks, which are then hauled
to the top. The divers work from
80 to 125 feet down. A diver is good
for only about 10 years.
They have trouble getting divers
now. The young men, like young
men everywhere, are drifting away
from their fathers business. The
young Greeks won't go diving for
sponges. They go out in the world
and get educated and get better
jobs. A few young men keep COM
ing from Greece, and they become
the sponge divers.
XXTHEN boat gets a load, it
w comes in, and the sponges
are put in stall in the sponge ex-
change. This is merely big court
yard, with a one-story brick build
ing around three sides of it. The
building is divided into dozens of
small rooms or stalls" facing on
the courtyard, with iron bars for the
front wall.
Every Tuesday and Friday morn
ing the sponge market is held. Great
crowds gather. Buyers offer sealed
bids for each batch. One days
sponge sale will run from $4,000 to
$50000 They have sold 20 million
dollars worth of sponges here in the
last 80 years.
The Greeks here are fine looking
people. Some of the daughters are
classically handsome. Even the COM
mon sailors are courteous and pleas
ant, and say few words of broken
English to you, which you can
hardly understand.
The little waterfront section is
dramatic place on sponge market
day. Dozens of boats tied up,
painted white and red and blue,
with banners flying, and men in
boots and colored blouses and red
rags on their heads. And the older
men, the merchants, strolling
around, with a massiveness and a
dignity in their faces that the peo-
pie Of few nations can match.