Spongeorama!

 

Going to Spongeorama in Tarpon Springs, FL has been on my gotta-do list for ages. It's a classic Florida roadside attraction that has been in operation since 1968.  I also love the name of the place which I like to call Sponge-E-O-Rama.

Mr. Husband Sir and I found ourselves in the Tampa area on a bit of last minute business and happened to realize that we were just a whiff and a whisker away from SPONGEORAMA!

We made our way over through the deluge to the small quaint building.  I then covered my bases by pronouncing I think we are about to be underwhelmed.

We encountered lots and lots of beautiful sea sponges, but certainly not at discount prices.

I mean, I would think since the middle man has been eliminated and these sponges were plucked out of the sea just yards from the building they would have passed the saving on to us.  The above sponges started at 15 bucks each.  I guess they would be like 100 bucks in the commercial market or Walmart.

There are several shelves lining the walls displaying more sponges...dusty sponges.

Samples of different types of sponges to experience in their wet form.

Mr. Husband Sir got to wear the sponge hat.

I got a quick blurry photo in the iconic diver's mask between down pours.

The day we went the free movie on the history of sponge diving was closed.  So we were in and out of the place in about 5 minutes.  It's very small in there and other than the overpriced sponges the other stuff for sale isn't Spongeorama themed....I mean, goat soap?

In a round about way I do already have a souvenir from there.  Last summer when I was decorating/painting the bathroom I wanted to do a sea sponge paint technique on the walls.  It took me a bit to locate a sea sponge in town big enough but I found one at Ace Hardware.  I was thinking how neat it would be if the sponge was from Spongeorama and then I saw on the label it was from Tarpon Springs!  And it was only about 5 bucks.  Ace Hardware must have a connection in the underground black market sea sponge racket.

Spongeorama is located in a little Greek area with several other shops, restaurants, and interesting sites on the docks.  Because of the torrential rain and our short window of time to visit we missed all of that stuff but if we find ourselves down that way again we'll try again to see the Spongeorama movie and sample some baklava.

For now we are just enjoying the bragging rights of saying we've been to SPONGEORAMA!