While this news left me looking forward to a nice Victoria sandwich, it soon became clear that they were talking about sea sponges, those things you used to see in bathrooms in the 1970s. Well, the sponge trade is still going strong in Tarpon, where most people speak Greek because in 1905 an entrepreneur started recruiting Europe's best sponge divers and that's where they come from.
One of my favourite things about America is that you get these places that have their "thing", and then they lean into that as far as they can. There's the town in California called Solvang where everything is Danish. Then there's the guy in Arizona who bought London Bridge and decided to build a whole city around it. In Tarpon Springs, every shop sells sponges and knock-off Greek statues, and every restaurant serves you moussaka and spanakopita, and lets you wash it down with ouzo. It made me wonder what the local chamber of commerce meetings are like.
But, when in Greece...so we quickly boarded a boat to go and watch a (ridiculously good-looking) diver put on an ancient diving suit, jump into the muddy waters, and return with a sponge on a fork. And yes, they did refer to him as a "sponge hunter", which seemed a bit dramatic given that sponges attach themselves to a rock and spend their whole life sitting there, unmoving.
I learned some things. There are only five types of sponge that have any commercial use. Sponges can live up to 200 years. Sponges can be used as plant pots. Most distressingly, having been told by Christine that sponges are plants and they only harvest the top bit so that they grow back, it turns out that sponges are animals, and the spongey bit is actually their desiccated skeleton! Suddenly I'm washing myself with someone's dead body!! I will use this as another excuse to skip baths.
After our trip we met up with the rest of the Mucker party at a Greek restaurant and enjoyed gyros and Greek salad, then treated each child to a sponge. To wash with, not to eat. I had a friend who swallowed a sponge. The doctor said he'll be fine, but he can't stop drinking water! Hahahaa...
Next generation of sponge hunter.
The captain, who may have been one of the original immigrants from 1905.
Sponge diver.
He's hunted a sponge!
Returning to the boat with his trophy.
This is a sponge, before it's DRIED TO DEATH.
Apprentice.
The five types of commercial sponge.
Sponge selfie!
Girl with sponge.
