Tarpon Springs, Florida -
Spongeorama

Spongeorama

See the movie, wander the museum, learn about our blobby squishy friend, the natural sponge. Roadsideamerica.com Report...

Spongeorama: Diver's Nightmare

What happens when a deep sea diver ascends too quickly, then spends twenty years in a musty display at the free Sponge Museum? A photo collage. Roadsideamerica.com Report...

Spongeorama

Promotion of the Spongeorama's free video show and museum pulls in tourists to the gift shop and to consider an affiliated evening cruise.

The museum shows indications of both care and neglect. While the head to the little nude diver boatman had been reattached, the Sponge Diver's Nightmare was looking as bad as we'd ever seen it. The plexiglass was more clouded, the lighting dimmer, and boxes of merchandise were piled against the viewing window, as if they'd forgotten this was a museum.

However, it remains a must-see, with plenty of entertaining exhibits on the hazards and rewards of sponge diving. [RoadsideAmerica.com Team, 03/02/2011]

Spongeorama

I was there just a couple of weeks ago and it was GREAT! We saw the film and the diorama which is still in need of glass cleaning but very informative. We then boarded a large tour boat and were taken down the river port into the gulf, where we watched several pods of dolphins play. Then on to an island beach for shelling! This was a great afternoon on our trip to FL. [Dee, 01/28/2010]

Spongeorama

Owner Margie Fikaris let us see the Sponge Museum, after initially telling us it was closed to the public (RA: for some cleaning). It didn't hurt that we'd expressed an interest in buying a few of her store's natural sponges (and watching the video). The museum is in bad shape, quite dingy and in need of repair. Afterward she proudly showed off her display of postcards that had been done of the area over the years. [Peter Bates, 11/06/2009]