Author Archives: Luke Bennett

All this time that I’ve lived in Florida and yet somehow I’ve managed to never go saltwater fishing. I had a friend from Kentucky coming to visit for the weekend and he suggested spending Saturday afternoon at sea. I reserved a spot on a large charter for the group to depart at 8 AM. This proved to be a mistake as four alarms failed to awaken us.

Fortunately the aftermath of a late Friday was able to be shaken by 7:39AM and thus provided barely enough time for me to call and cancel the reservations for a refund. The charter had no other availability for the day so we browsed the internet and eventually found another charter in Clearwater that was departing at 1 PM. This allowed the group some time for breakfast and a little flea marketing before setting sail.

When we arrived the first thing we noticed was that our fishing boat was docked just a few spots down from the boat we had originally planned on using. After looking it over it was clear that the new boat was more suitable for the day ahead of us so we were happy with our error.

We arrived early enough to explore the boat and mess around before hitting the high waters and Heather decided she was hungry enough to try a little bait. Not really, but I’m quite sure she disgusted the bait boy. Which by the way, being a crew member on one of these fishing charter boats is probably the closest thing one can achieve to living the dream.

Should we happen to forget we are in one of the most touristy towns of Florida there were constant reminders of gimmicky boats trying to capitalize on our money. Such as this Jaws like cruise liner:

I was afraid that the day was going to get rained out as I had constantly checked the weather all week long. The weather indicated storms during the day in Clearwater but due to the messed up weather patterns of the Tampa Bay area you never know what is going to happen and somehow we managed to leave the storm ashore.

When we finally got to the captain’s honeycomb and were allowed to drop our lines in, the weeks anxiety finally came to an all time high. Before I could even drop my line in the water someone had already caught something. Maybe this was going to be a great day after all!

So I dropped my line in and I sat there. And I sat there. And I sat there. All passengers except Heather and I seemed to be bagging nemmatoad after nemmatoad. My friend Brian caught 5 or 6 fish, I lost count, he even caught a shark. So I decided to post this picture of his smallest catch of the day:

We had the great luxury of sharing our boat ride with some of the most fratastic brooks brother wearing wonderboys of all time on this particular Saturday. One of which even tried to steal my pole until I sat him straight. Anyways, after there shenanigans and beer shotgunning they of course were the ones to catch the days biggest fish. I believe it ended up being a 45 lb Cobia.

The captain came over the loud speaker to let us know we only had about 5 minutes of fishing left so I let the line loose and drag for half the reel. This proved to be the successful strategy because 20 seconds later I had my days first catch.

I threw him into the fish holocaust ice box and we headed back to land. The charter will clean the fish and put it in a bag for you which is nice. Especially since I don’t even have the utensils to do such a thing down here.

As we stood waiting for our fish to get butchered up, some random stranger (definitely from New Jersey) came up to me and offered me his stringer of fish. With the combined stringers of fish we were looking at some good eatings for dinner.

The bait boy was cleaning the fish for us and throwing the scraps to the little intelligent creature posted up in the marina waiting himself for some good eatings.

The captain let us know if we took our fish down to the restaurant on the end of the marina they would fry it up for us and put it with some sides for $8 bucks a plate. Nice! We didn’t even have to wait on the drive home to eat our days catch plus we wouldn’t have to stink up the apartment.

Cigar City. Tampa Bay. That’s what they call the Tampa Bay area. But the cigar industry flourished from the area that has grown to become known as Ybor City. It has heavy influence from Spanish, Cuba, and Italian heritage. This is very apparent if you spend more than 15 minutes in the district.

Most of the restaurants in the district are either Cuban or Italian which is fine by me. But this story really begins with the trip to Ybor City.

I was always warned from everyone that I know familiar with the area that you should only visit Ybor city during the day time. The drive from St. Pete is a conniving little trek I say so myself. What happens is you get in an expressway that says its a toll way. And I’m more than willing to pay a toll to get to Ybor City, because its that damn cool. But the further I drive down this toll way, I begin to realize that this is no ordinary toll way. When I pull of the toll way, I immediately come to the realization that there are no toll booths and no way for me to pay the toll. You know what the ******** of the state of Florida do? They take a picture of your license plate and mail you bill. That’s horse****. Anyways, when we pulled off, we saw a dead copse in the back of a pickup truck. This is the best picture I could get. So when this ends up some case on CourtTV 3 years from now, feel free to use this picture.

After we finally found a parking spot in Ybor City the first thing to notice is the Church of Scientology. It LITERALLY takes up an entire city block. No joke. I’m surprised myself. How could a religion afford such a great real estate lot? Good for them!

I love the brick streets in all these old cities in Florida. It really does it for me. That is all.

So this isn’t the first time I’ve been to Ybor City. I knew they had gay clubs and that’s fine and dandy. No judging. But I’ve never visited Ybor during the daytime. I had no idea that they had something they considered the ‘Gay District’. Good for them!

There’s supposedly some great drag shows. Maybe one day someone will drag me to one, but today’s not the day. So instead, I’ll just get some great photo ops!

As we were taking these great photo ops, I heard a horn ringing in my ear. I looked back and with enough time I was able to capture the picture of this city rail. I had no idea such a thing still existed in cities outside of San Francisco but whatev.

Anyways, there are plenty of statues in the city for good pics and plenty of great Cuban restaurants if you enjoy a pressed steak. Even the famous Columbia’s restaurant. There’s something about the atmosphere in this town that gives you a relaxed Sunday vibe that everyone should encounter at least once.

Ever since I’ve moved to Florida people keep yammering to me about how I should go check out the sponge docks in Tarpon Springs. I’ve kinda just put it off because Tarpon Springs was only 30 minutes away and it didn’t seem too enticing. But as a Saturday approached and no ideas for a spontaneous adventure rattled in my noggin, I resorted to my book of suggestions of adventures in Florida and it recommended Tarpon Springs.

Apparently, Tarpon Springs is where all the sponges are caught in the world or some shit like that. So I guess I’d give a chance. The town was full of docked boats with every inch of capacity occupied by sponges and stores that sold sponges. Sponges were selling for 50 dollars a pop. What kind of mindless drone has money to spend on a $50 dollar sponge? I’m still in confusion. It honestly felt like a tourist trap. I felt like I was in a crappy movie from the late 80’s/early 90’s about family vacations.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

Nonetheless, I like making the best of bad situation and coincidentally enough for us, this particular Saturday happened to be some random occurrence where they were celebrating Christmas in July. Some Mrs. Clause was singing “Shake, Rattle and Roll” so I couldn’t help myself from dancing in the pictures.

As we continued to stroll among the 100’s of Santa’s roaming the streets we eventually found Santa’s sleigh. Now I guess I never got the memo, but apparently the ‘Traveling Santa’ industry is a lucrative business.  My mind still cannot comprehend how so many Santa’s can gather in one place and make money on a Saturday worthy of sleeping in on. But whatever.

I knew before I left I must obtain a picture with a Santa. So when two Santa’s sitting on a bench presented themselves, a perfect picture opportunity was to be capitalized on. Unfortunately for me, of the hundreds of Santas present on this sunny Saturday, I chose the one gay one. And as I tried to get my photo op, I can only imagine what he was thinking of me…

Uncomfortable Laughter

The book of suggestions that guided me to the booming metropolis of Tarpon Springs also suggested that we try the Greek Food of Hellas Restaurant.

The food was actually quite pleasant. And something about the restaurant’s lighting wouldn’t let me forget that I was eating Greek food in a coastal town in the state of Florida. I’m still not quite sure what it is though. Regardless, the food was great and the whole city seemed to be occupied by Greek Restaurants. I don’t care to do my research on why this is, I just assume the word Tarpon has something to do with the Greek God of sponges.

For some reason this pic reminds me of HST

The rest of the city has tourist things like shops full of sponges and other souveniry items like soap and sponge fused together. But I wasn’t sold on spending money i didn’t have to. The barbaric people that spend money in this city must have too much money to spend and no soul.

While the soap fused with sponge was cool, I wasn’t sold on spending money I didn’t need to spend. So I snapped a few more photo ops and took my sunburn home with me.

For this adventure I stepped out of my comfort zone. You see normally, I would pick my own thing and just go do it or convince a friend of mine that it will be the most awesome thing of all time and then go. Normally this person wouldn’t find the joy of the simple things in life. This person also probably wouldn’t ever join me on an adventure again. Fortunately for me this time, I had a companion that even suggested a place to go.
So off we embarked…
We paid the two dollars, followed a couple of signs and ended up at a parking spot in front of a children playing on a swing sets and such. Ahead, I could see a bulletin board that immediately gathered my attention.

I was instantly reminded that I was in the great state of Florida. The place laws are made for. I looked over my shoulder instinctively and tried to remain calm. Where had my compadre brought me?

“There’s a great path ahead,” she suggested obviously being familiar with the park. As we approached her golden path we were confronted with a flooded trail of Florida swamp. Signs all around us suggested that we didn’t proceed any further. Disappointed she persevered in the idea of greatness being only just ahead. We blazed our on path as far as we could through Florida wooded terrain until inevitable defeat. But I was able to capture a great photo!

We decided to make the best of what we had since we had made the long trek down Dale Mabry. For those of you unfamiliar with Tampa, Dale Mabry is essentially hell. If you can avoid it, do.

There wasn’t much to see in the part of the park that was accessible so we were quite disappointed. We headed back to the jeep and decided to go off and find whatever other adventure our Saturday might have in store for us.

When up ahead I saw a sign in the park that said ‘Archery Range >>>’. “Well **** me! Lets check that out!” I haven’t found a good spot to practice my bow shot since I’ve been down in Florida. I’ve also got an Elk hunting trip in Colorado planned for September, so I need to get my shot on.

The archery range was everything I expected an archery range in the state of Florida to be. It’s no Cherokee park archery range. Rules were posted every where. People overcrowded it. When I shoot my bow I want to be alone. Even one onlooker would grind my gears and deter from my shot. I saw three.

Further down the path we found the part of the park that my partner in crime had been raving about. There was indeed a second route to her promise land. Some family was having some birthday cook out ahead of where we parked. There was also a sweet ass looking dirt bike path in front of us. But Heather suggested we walked the trails she was accustomed to.

So off we set. And some friendly passersby we encountered. Some were even on horse. This is when the day finally started to feel complete.

After suffering the exhaustive heat of July in Florida, we decided it was time we went and got some lunch. But as we exited we saw a huge turtle crossing the road.

And when we got back on Dale Mabry and headed North Bound I was captivated by the sign on the side of the road that reminded me I was leaving the Yankee part of Florida and entering the South…