Highs and lows in Dunedin High 78F

Good morning all. Once again I have skipped a few days as we ready ourselves for our next departure. To answer your question Brenda; Nella was right, these were sponges hanging on the boat behind us. Tarpon Springs is the Sponge Capital or the World. Sponge is a plant that grows on the bottom and the divers cut off only part of the plant so that it may renew itself. The reason Tarpon Springs is the Capital is because of the quality of sponge they harvest. Since the plant depends on light to grow, the murky waters of Florida allow the sponge to grow more dense before being long enough to cut. Therefore the sponge is of higher quality.

This town also happens to be the Greek center of Florida, so if you happen to visit, you'll have lots of option of Greek restaurants to eat at! Yummy! There is lot's of work for divers around here. Some of the boats in Tarpon had help wanted signs. There is also diving companies around Dunedin who hire themselves out to clean Zebra muscles off the boat bottoms. This one was hired by Jeff and Susan as they had been idle at the the Marina for a month, which gave the muscles lots of chance to grow.

I am not sure that we will need to get the bottom cleaned before we leave. I think the mud and sand on the bottom is doing that job for us.  There is a normal tidal swing of about 2 feet here. However a full moon or a North wind will empty the bay and cause swings up to 4 feet. There have been a few mornings where we wake up to a completely still boat. The first time it happened I made a comment about how calm the water was. However we were still because our boat was sitting on the bottom of the bay, embedded in mud! It does not take long before the tide lifts again and we get to floating, but it is an odd felling, moving about the boat and it not moving with us. Some times we have to climb into the boat and at others we have to drop into the boat. It gets quite challenging when the rail of our top deck is easier to get onto then the rail of the bottom deck!

High tide 

Low tide 

Dunedin is right across the bay from Caladesie Island and Honeymoon Island. Jim and I have gone over to these islands by dinghy on a couple of occasions. A couple of days ago we went to the Gulf side and the waves were so large that we flooded the dinghy and we both got soaking wet. However it was a beautiful day and the sun dried us in short order. We did some shelling and walking, but I have no idea what I will do with all these shells! Any ideas?

Jim walking the beach in Calaesie Island 

The path to the beach from the Parks office

Aside from the highs and lows of the tides we have also had the highs and lows of the weather. since our arrival here we have had temperatures as low as 36F and as high as 78F. Many days where we could not wear our shorts and had to turn on the furnace and others where we needed the AC on. Well just one of those! In speaking with my family both up North and in Southern Ontario, it has been relatively mild up there. On one occasion, I was talking to Shawn (our son) and we had a 2F difference between Hamilton and Florida. Huh? coming all this way and having the same weather. Imagine! I understand that the difference now is much more significant, so I feel better about it all.
Either way the sunsets continue to be magical and the wildlife continues to pose for us, and we are blessed.







This will be my last post until January 5th when we return from our trip home and start moving south again. Talk to you all in the new year. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy prosperous New Year.