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Tarpon Sponge Docks Has Passionate Advocate

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST

George Billiris, 81, a longtime fixture at the Sponge Docks, in Tarpon Springs, enjoys a moment with one of his sponge divers Yannis Demopoulos.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: December 6, 2008

The sun is warm, Tarpon Springs' Sponge Docks is full of tourists, and George Billiris is in his element.

He walks around the family business, St. Nicholas Boat Line, drumming up business for 30-minute rides on the family sponge boat, St. Nicholas VII.

Billiris obviously enjoys bantering with tourists. "We'll take you out for free," he tells one of them. "You just have to pay to come back."

Orlando resident Jay Hunt laughingly declines Billiris' offer, saying he has already taken one of the boat rides. Hunt and wife Laura had their first date at the Sponge Docks and were making a sentimental return to the Hellenic culture district on the Anclote River to commemorate the start of their relationship.

An energetic, vital man who paces in front of his boat, Billiris appears younger than his 81 years. An Aries, he laughs and jokingly acknowledges his interpretation of the zodiac sign - "aggressive, hard headed and willing to work hard" - fits him.

The waters lapping at the edges of the Sponge Docks have supported generations of the Billiris clan, beginning with his grandfather John Michael, who first came to Tarpon Springs as a sponge distributor in 1904 and later bought his own sponge boat.

Billiris was the third of eight children born to Michael John and Helen Billiris. Like George, the other Billiris children - John, Sylvia, Ted, Nick, Mary, Angelo and Frances - were born in the house on East Boyer Street in which they grew up. All but John are still alive.

Even though sponge boats ranged as far as 100 miles offshore in those days, landlubbers stayed close to home. "When I was a little boy, if you went from one county to another, it went into the newspapers," Billiris recalls.

The Billiris family was part of the sponge industry at its heyday. Given the choice of either working the boats or going for further education when he graduated high school, Billiris chose the boats and learned all aspects of the business. "If you're going to be in charge, you have to know what you're talking about," he says.

In the prime of sponge diving, about 150 sponge boats plied the Gulf of Mexico from Apalachicola to Key West, Billiris remembers. For sponge divers, it was a life mostly on the water. Even short trips lasted 30 days.

In the 1940s, the industry was decimated by a blight affecting the sponge beds. It has never returned to its former glory. The Billiris clan still owns two sponge boats that have much smaller territories - from Tarpon Springs to the Taylor County town of Steinhatchee, at the eastern end of the Panhandle - than their predecessors. Today, only about 20 boats work the waters, ranging only about 20 miles offshore.

Billiris has also become a sponge distributor, closing the circle on the family's involvement with both the industry and Tarpon Springs, where his grandfather arrived over a century ago as a distributor. With several Sponge Docks businesses owned by his family, Billiris is an energetic promoter of that tourist area, pointing out the income and employment it brings to the city. He is a member of the Pinellas County Tourist Development Council and has appeared in 47 documentaries in 17 languages detailing the lives and times of the Tarpon Springs sponge divers. Busy with running his businesses, Billiris didn't marry until he was 52. His wife, Beverly, is the mayor of Tarpon Springs.

George chuckles about his partnership with Beverley, who, given her ethnic heritage, perhaps should have been the mayor of Dunedin.

"A Scot and a Greek," George said. "It's a helluva combination, isn't it?"

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