Showing posts with label sponge diving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sponge diving. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Faces from the road




These are some of the good people we met during our week on Kalymnos, Greece. Kalymnos is the island of sponge divers, and back in the early 20th century, when the Mediterranean sponge beds began to decline, many Kalymnians moved to Florida. They settled around Tarpon Springs, founded the now-famous Greek community there, and started sponge diving in the Gulf of Mexico. Everywhere we went on Kalymnos, whenever we told folks we were from Florida, we heard something like: "My great uncle Stathos, he lives in Tarpon Springs. You know him?" Next stop: Tarpon Springs. There are a lot of people we have to look up...