North Star on the Great Loop Journey: The sponge capital of the world

Preparing for the trip

Captain Jerry has been making the final preparations to North Star, our 32 foot Cape Island down east trawler. We are anxious to leave our landlubber lives behind and begin our long awaited journey around the Great Circle. Join us as we travel 10, 000 kilometers: through the historic Trent Severn Waterway; the pristine waters of Georgian Bay; the North Channel of lake Huron; and hop from beach to beach on lake Michigan. We will visit Chicago and begin our trek along the rivers: Illinois; upper Mississippi; Ohio; Cumberland: Tennessee; Tenn-Tom Waterway and the Black Warrior. We will have transited through 68 locks at this juncture. We have chosen the inner route from Mobile Alabama to Tarpon Springs Florida and the shorter Ocheechobee Waterway to reach the East coast of Florida. We will skip over to the Bahamas to wait out the winter before heading North on the Atlantic Inter Coastal Waterway.
The 10 years of researching and planning are finally at an end and we invite you to come along on our adventure.

Monday, November 21, 2011

The sponge capital of the world

They are not kidding about their sponges and the wonderful Greek food in Tarpon Springs. he sponge docks are lined with sponge diving boats and sponge shops. They are touristy shops selling loofah, T-shirts and soap. The Greek restaurants are everywhere with ladies handing you copies of menus of their respective establishment. I am not that familiar with Greek food and it is hard to decide when they offer the same thing at similar prices. We opted for the Parthenon and split the small house special. It is one of the best pizzas I have ever had. The Captain liked it although he was less enthusiastic than I.
There is a really nice bicycle trail that runs through town which we found quite enjoyable. We love this flat terrain and bonus the trail led us to a grocery store and you guessed it, West Marine.

We finished off the day with a visit to Capt'n Jack's Tiki bar for a cold beer and finger food. It was located 100 feet from our boat and looked too good to pass up. All in all, we are glad we stayed to visit this quaint town, it was a lot of fun.