Sponge Divers of Tarpon

[Music] this adventurous race of men who prowl on the weird floor of the ocean in quest of these sponges that are used to wash our automobiles and little johnny's back on saturday night we're on the west coast of florida but in imagination these sponge fishing ships take us to distant times since dim antiquity men have hunted for sponges on the floor of the sea and for thousands of years the great sponge fisheries were in the eastern mediterranean among the isles of greece today they are here in the gulf of mexico for generations one family has built all of the luggage their exact copies of the boats used from time to memorial by the sponge fishers of the aegean sea except for their american motors in bible times the peoples of the eastern mediterranean were beguiled by the adventurous life of the sponge divers today the marvel of the sponge fisheries has been transferred to a quaint florida colony of simple hardy men men of the sea men of the undersea a transplanted bit of the land where homer twanged his blooming liars [Music] the divers who prowl the undersea off florida are all greeks some born here others brought over their descendants of the sponge divers who in the days of the greeks and romans plunged naked with a heavy stone under one arm to take them down to the dim world of the sponges greek divers established this colony at tarpon springs florida some 80 years ago one section of the city is given over to them they speak their own language have their own church and their own government they fly the flag of greece and the american flag well we're off for the sponge fishing grounds now five in the crew and supplies for a three months cruise below deck is a smelly cargo of spaghetti olive oil tomato paste a hundred pounds of garlic did you ever smell a hundred pounds of garlic oh and 200 pounds of onions that'll fix the sea breezes we're in shoal water now among the rock island sponge bars which extend from 100 to 200 miles off the coast and below these turbulent waters is the realm of those fantastic living things we call sponges he's heaving the lead down it goes to the bottom of the sea like then he holds it up again the lead has soap on the end that picks up stuff from the ocean bed if it's sand not so good gravel how does it look boy gravel fine the symbol of the sponge divers trait is that diving helmet on the map these lads are the master sponge diver's assistants here's our diver he's a weather beaten sea scarred spun seasoned veteran the diver's assistants are always the same men each responsible for a certain part of the outfit the diver's life is in their hands they're starting the air compressor to inflate his suit suppose the air hose wasn't connected right suppose they left a bolt-on fastened but let's not do any supposing let's not think of anything like that because we're going down with him in just a moment it seems to be a middle aged or old man's game apparently it's a dangerous profession and the youngsters down florida way give it a wide burst perhaps brave youth hasn't the nerve anyway they have to bring over the old-timers from greece and this chap has been at it long enough to own his own boat property in athens and he's never seen athens his suit is inflated now he can control the air pressure by simply pushing his head against an outlet valve he gauges the pressure with his ears if he feels that heavy oppression like we feel when we go through a tunnel he bobs his head against the air valve and now he's ready for the sponge diver's great adventure he's ready to jump and jumping overboard is a difficult thing to do difficult i mean because if he has to it has too much air in his suit he'll turn upside down the second he hits the water then he can't write himself and is absolutely helpless and has to be hauled back on deck he's letting air out of his helmet hence the bubbles letting out the air permits him to sink and as he goes down two men on deck slowly uncoil his air hose and lifeline down down he goes to the weird sites of the under sea but distance is deceiving these fish look close they look small in reality they are from four to eight feet long and quite a way off down down he goes on his way he passes a cliff a bit of eerie mountain scenery in neptune's world and now he's gleaning the wealth of the ocean floor like an unearthly monster he gropes his slow grotesque way he always walks against the current like a man leaning into a heavy wind if he tried to walk with the current it would bowl him over and he wouldn't be able to get up his outfit weighs 570 pounds he wears ponderous cast iron shoes and so maneuvering to get his balance he drags one foot after another in slow mysterious fashion the cameraman too did a bit of undersea adventuring that day with his specially built underwater camera he descended to a depth of over a hundred feet the best commercial sponges come in deep water like this sometimes he finds a nest sometimes they are scattered the most valuable found in the floor florida waters is the sheep's wool sponge that's what he's hunting for although he picks up other varieties too and when he has a full net he pulls down a length of his lifeline he attaches his sponges signals to the surface and the lads on the lugger pull them up it's a fair haul while he gropes and fishes with what looks like neptune's trident the life of the sea teams around him there are dangers from sharks and the vicious barracuda the tiger fish and the only way he can fight them is by releasing a blast of air from his helmet the hissing noise the glistening bubbles like brilliant gems frighten off the barracuda the light is brilliant around the sponges on the seafloor but everything disappears within a short range of vision worst of all his dangers are the giant turtles of the gulf of mexico they'll bite off a man's arm or leg and wall betide him if he happens to stumble upon a turtle's rendezvous there is no way to fight the 500 pound armored monsters for the diver is only capable of a slow languid motion in this fantastic realm of mr sponge but wait a minute we shouldn't say mr sponge we should say both mr and mrs because old man sponge is both male and female in the same individual which makes him old lady sponge too inhabitants of the clear green world swim by and everything moves with a slow graceful undulating movement the diver has been on the bottom for over an hour once more he has a full net his day's work is over and he signals on the lifeline i'm through boys pull me up and in a boil of bubbles he pops to the surface but his danger is not over it is when he is floating helplessly bobbing on the surface like this that he is in the greatest danger of being attacked by the ferocious barracuda the lads on board wind up his air hose and his lifeline and toe him in then when they have him towed alongside he climbs up the ladder and he hands up his last net of sponges but he doesn't hurry in fact all the way up from the bottom of the sea he takes his time he must do this he must come slowly in order to gradually adjust the air pressure and then for the same reason he must be careful about taking off his helmet if he doesn't well he'll suffer from a strange illness that is the dread of all men of the undersea it is an illness called the bends it cripples them bends them over so they become prematurely old then on board begins the process of preparing the sponges squeezing and scraping away the living fluid because the sponge is an animal what we call a sponge is only the skeleton around it in it is the living substance which has [Music] homeward bound with our cargo sponges after a three months cruise in the gulf of mexico all is excitement when the boats come in but it isn't payday for the boys the men of the sponge fleet have been all paid in advance the pay being based on the estimated size of the catch before they go out sometimes an owner is disappointed because the catch doesn't equal the advance pay of the men and then he roars with an eloquence that would make demosthenes sound like a peanut whistle through the gates in the yard of the sponge exchange where the auctions take place are ninety thousand dollars worth of sponges drying the sponge fishers being greeks are not exactly unsophisticated it's a case of greek meeting greek battling for a million dollars the value of the annual catch at the world's biggest sponge market all the world clamors for sponges they pound them to break small shellfish that sneak inside and make themselves at home in mr sponge's labyrinthine innards all day long they pound and clip trimming off the rubber edges where the sponge clung to the rock some of the boys are making little sponges out of big ones last night and this is the object and the goal of the adventurous quest on the perilous floor of the sea and we return once more to that quaint cafe where again we hear the old traditional champion from far off greece the song of the sponge diamonds