We Saw the Titanic

We hadn’t been able to exchange to the gulf coast of Florida for several years, so when the Treasure Island Beach Resort became available, we took it. We had a water view unit overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. The beach in that area was a quarter of a mile wide, and there was a concrete walkway linking all the resorts on the island. Rental cabanas lined the beach, and palm trees were scattered here and there. This beach was excellent for shelling.

Guests, at this resort, are very friendly, more so than most resorts. Many come back every year, but if you’re new, they’ll start a friendly conversation when they meet you at the pool or the laundry. Wednesday is poolside party day. My husband found out about it when he went out to the pool to check the temperature of the water and noticed a party going on. The regulars insisted on the party so management went along with it and charged a $2 fee for hot dogs and soda. There were all kinds of delicious dishes as well. We found out later it was potluck, but we hadn’t been informed before the party began. We were invited to join and had a good time. Management was equally friendly, but they close the office at 5pm (7pm on Saturday). If you come in late for check-in or lose your key, you’ll have a problem. When the office was closed so was the laundry.

A new form of timeshare soliciting was going on. Instead of the usual offer to receive a "gift" and listen to a presentation, some of the guests owned several units and were attempting to sell them. You could buy a week from management for $750 as well; needless to say, they were not water view units.

The pool was new, clean and heated, and the spa was great, deeper than most. We were there in January and were able to use it for three days; it was too cold the rest of the week.

The kitchen-dining-living room was small but enhanced with wall-to-wall mirrors. Everything was clean and in good condition, but inexpensive. The floor was white ceramic tile. The bedroom had wall-to-wall inexpensive carpeting and a queen-size bed with built in storage in the headboard.

Most of the towns along the gulf coast in the St Petersburg-Tampa area have a Johnny Leverock’s Seafood Restaurant. We found this one just below the bridge along the Tom Stuart Causeway. The decorating theme was fishing poles; door handles, room dividers and wall ornaments were all made from fishing poles. Waterfront dining allowed us to look out at beautiful Boca Siega Bay. Tables in the center of the room are on raised platforms, allowing a good view of the bay. Like everywhere else in that area, you can find fishing boats and cruise boats located next to the parking lot. It’s best to make reservations in the restaurant because they’re very busy.

Fresh seafood is Leverock’s speciality. Bob ordered Sea Fry, $15.99, and I ordered Stuff Grouper, $16.99. All dinners came with a choice of French fries, baked potato or veggies, a choice of house salad or Caesar salad, and fresh bread and honey butter. Bob’s house salad had small chunks of tomato, lettuce, shredded cashews and shredded combo cheeses. It was attractive and tasty. My Caesar salad was excellent, Romaine lettuce with a great dressing, croutons, and shredded Asiago cheese.

A lobster cream sauce was spread over my shrimp and crabmeat stuffed grouper. It looked and tasted delicious. The veggies consisted of cooked yellow squash, baby carrots and broccoli. Bob’s Sea Fry included lightly fried shrimp, juicy scallops, flounder, and oysters, in a delicious batter and with lots of fries. Three sauces were served with it: ketchup, cocktail sauce, and Honey Dijon sauce. He asked for Tartar sauce and liked that better. We decided to try to avoid desserts even though they had an excellent selection.

The view of the bay is especially lovely at night.

John’s Pass, just north of the drawbridge on Treasure Island in Florida, has several waterfront restaurants next to the wharf. We pulled into the first entryway of trendy John’s Pass Mall and noticed a lighthouse, out lined with neon lights, at the end of a long, dark driveway. It turned out to be the Friendly Fisherman Restaurant owned and operated by the Hubbard family; it was next to the Hubbard Marina that included a fleet of fishing boats.

We entered through the door of the lighthouse and found ourselves in a bar; the restaurant was upstairs. A diversified collection of prize fish was mounted on the walls along with some excellent watercolor paintings with price tags. We were seated next to a window where we could see people passing by on the boardwalk.

We started our meal with a fresh Boardwalk Salad, consisting of Romaine lettuce tossed in a garlic-vinegarette dressing and served with croutons and shredded cheese, $1.95. It was different than most salads, but delicious. For our entrees, I ordered Neptune’s Platter, $13.95 and Bob ordered Fishermans’ Platter, $13.95. My dinner included fresh broiled flounder that was so light I was surprised it didn’t fall apart, shrimps and scallops that were done to perfection, and huge snow crab legs. I had a choice of two sides and chose baked potato and coleslaw. Bob had substituted grouper for salmon for an additional $1.95. It was well worth it; the fish tasted like lobster. His entree, also included jumbo shrimp and sea scallops, and for his two sides he chose French fries and coleslaw. Corn fritters were served with the dinners. Both dinners were excellent.

After going through Titanic: the Artifact Exhibit, at the Museum of Science And Industry (MOSI), in Tampa, FL, we went to their Imax theater, in the same complex, and saw the movie Ghosts of the Abyss. James Cameron, who was the award winning director of Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, produced and directed Ghosts of the Abyss, also about the Titanic. It was a documentary, filmed on location, two and a half miles below the surface of the cold North Atlantic, where the ship ended up after hitting an ice burg and sinking, in 1912.

The movie starts with the Russian research ship, Keldysh, arriving at the site above the Titanic. Two submersibles, Mir I and Mir II were transported to the site aboard the ship. They were lowered into the sea with two robot light/cameras aboard, Jake and Elrood, that were created by Cameron to light the bottom of the ocean because it was completely dark and there was too much pressure that far down for divers with cameras. The robots were released, from special doors, and began to explore the site. The famous bow came into view, but no love scene, and then the robots filmed the top deck, where the helmstand was located, and momentarily a holographic ghost steered the ship.

The robots ventured inside the ship, through the hole in the side of the hull. In a first class bedroom, a ghost picked up a derby hat off a bureau; you can see the real hat and many other items that were used in the movie, in the actual museum exhibit. The luxurious leaded glass windows, of the first class dining hall, were still in place here and there, and suddenly the ghost of the passengers were promenading along the deck in their fine attire. A shot of the actual windows, lit up inside by one of the robots, made that section of the ship come alive, if for only a few seconds. The crank shaft for the life boats came into view, and suddenly the ghost of John Jacob Astor IV was helping his pregnant wife into a life boat, and for a few seconds, the life boat was lowered down the side of the ship. On the deck the brave band played their final performance as hysteria continued all around them.

Dr. Lori Johnson, a female marine biologist, who was involved in researching the conditions of the Titanic, became an actress in the drama, and explained the ship abounds with life; minuscular sea creatures make, what looks like, stalactites that hung everywhere from the sunken ship. Russian Mir pilot, Genya Cherniav, had problems communicating in English. One robot tangled up in the ragged edges of the damaged ship and then was rescued by the other robot.

It was suppose to be in 3-D but we weren’t given glasses on the way into the theater. A video of the movie is available in our local library.

John’s Pass Shopping Mall 129th Avenue East and Gulf Boulevard Madeira Beach, FL 33708

As we crossed over the drawbridge from Treasure Island to Madeira Beach, we noticed the boardwalk and shops at John’s Pass. It was a bright sunny winter day in Florida; tourists flocked to the quaint little village with over one hundred unique shops and enjoyed the tropical water front restaurants. We headed for the boardwalk and some truly rare shopping. Glass at the Pass had a one of a kind exceptionally beautiful Art Nouveau torchiere brass lamp stand with a half a sphere swirling glass lampshade, $585. The Hide Out had dress accessories made from natural cobra, python, rattlesnake, gator and sting ray hides; a woman’s belt cost $99. Nautical ornaments, tropical gifts and clothing, wild things to decorate the house, unusual jewelry and hand crafted items were for sale in Upon the Boardwalk. An exquisite pair of sheet metal hand crafted flamingos, two feet high, were $79 apiece in FLAmingos.

Under the boardwalk, we could see Majesty I, the casino boat, docked next to Hubbard’s Marina. We took it out a few times. On the gulf coast, gambling is only allowed nine miles out at sea, so it is a long cruise. The cruise is free and they offer good entertainment and a free meal if you sign up for a card. The Friendly Fisherman Restaurant is part of Hubbard’s Marina and is ran by the Hubbard family, and they have excellent fresh seafood for $10-20 for dinner. If you have children with you, you might like the pirate ship cruise, a two hour cruise for $28 for adults and $18 for children, or it might be even more exciting to take them out on the high seas to locate dolphin in Dolphin Quest’s boats. Jack’s at The Hut rent small craft boats and you can take them out and do your own thing; they also offer kite sailing, fishing, charters and dolphin watching, so compare prices.

Scully’s is a must see. It looks like a rusty old shack, but its really a very expensive water front restaurant with a great menu, dinners from $20-30. If tropical elegance is your thing try Tiki Hut next door. The Village Boulevard shops have less expensive restaurants, Uncle Charlie’s Crab Shack has fast food and Hugo’s Topside Cafe feature a grouper sandwich for lunch for $5.95.

The Boulevard shops have really good but less expensive items. We bought embroidered sweatshirts for two for $25. John’s Pass should be part of everyone’s Treasure Island vacation.

On the tenth of April, 1912, Miss Hannah Riordan from Glenlouga, Kingwilliamstown, Co. Cork, Ireland, was aboard the Titanic, heading for New York. She was traveling with her cousin, Patrick O’Connor. They had confidently boarded the largest, most luxurious ship afloat, in Queenstown, Ireland, and were traveling third class. In Southampton, England, Mr. Masabumi Hosono, a civil servant from Tokyo, Japan, went aboard as a second-class passenger. He was traveling alone and was the only Japanese on board. As we went into the Titanic Artifact Exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry, in Tampa, FL, my husband and I were given their boarding passes and were suppose to assume their identity.

A pair of glasses, a derby hat, money, a watch and more items, exhumed from their watery grave, two and a half miles down in the cold North Atlantic Ocean, were on exhibit in glass cases around the first room we came to. The next room had a chronology of events as they occurred, starting in 1907 when J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line and Lord James Pirrie conceived the idea of dominating passenger travel by building the largest ships the world had ever seen.

Next, we were welcomed aboard by Captain Edward Smith, who was wearing an elegant 1912 uniform. He was booming with hospitality and didn’t care what class we were traveling, which is more than I can say for some of the first class passengers we met, later. We started down the elegant first class hallway, expensively decorated with cream colored painted woodwork and Oriental carpeting. As we went around the corner we were awed by the grand staircase directly in front of us. Above it was a massive wrought iron art glass dome with a magnificent crystal chandelier hanging from the center. The hand carved wooden balustrades were accented with gold leaf. Large black and white tiles in geometric designs were on the floor in front of it. The stairs went half way up and then split to the right and left.

A lacy bronze grillwork door, used to restrict the first class dining hall for first class passengers, dishes, decanters for drinking water, cooking utensils and other paraphernalia, all taken from the real Titanic, were displayed in the next room. Then we came across two ladies, wearing fancy period clothing, who were sitting in a small, but elegant first class café, an exact replica of the one on the ship. One of the ladies got up and offered me her jewel-clad hand. She wanted to know my name and what class I was traveling, and if I had seen John Jacob Astor and his eighteen year old wife. She was so hospitable, with a take-charge attitude, she annoyed me, but I tried to cope with the situation without seeming unfriendly. I said I wasn’t sure what class I was traveling so she told me to look on my boarding pass. I did and read, "Third class."

"You’re not allowed in here. This is first class only," she instructed me.

I sat in an empty white wicker chair at her table and said, "I like first class."

She was so completely offended by my insolent behavior she was going to call someone to remove me to third class. Not schooled in the art of role playing and finding myself in so much trouble, I could think of no other answer than to move on, frightened by the experience.

A placard on the wall in the next room explained the scandal of the day that was keeping first class passengers so amused. John Jacob Astor, one of the wealthiest men in the world, had recently divorced his wife so he could marry his eighteen-year-old girlfriend. They had an extended honeymoon in Egypt, and, when the bride became pregnant, they decided to go back to America. Astor went down with the ship. Shunned by his family, his wife, who did survive the disaster, gave birth to John Jacob Astor V, alone. He started the chain of Winn-Dixie stores during his lifetime.

We next, passed a beautifully decorated first class bedroom and the obnoxious lady from the café was sitting on the bed. She looked at me, raised her eyebrows, and said, "Third class is around the corner."

Afraid of another scene, we continued to third class. It had been furnished with unpainted wood bunk beds. A talkative third class passenger greeted us and when she found I was also a third class passenger, invited me to choose a bunk. She told us all her business and that of her employer, more juicy gossip.

Many more items, from the ship, had been brought up from the deep, including the famous safe, but we weren’t prepared to see a piece of the actual Titanic. The room was in semidarkness and an imitation of the sounds and coldness of the air gave a feeling of what it was like to be there. A 20,000-ton piece of the hull was displayed behind a thick sheet of clear acrylic. Glass portholes were broken and one was falling lose. A small piece of the hull was under another piece of acrylic with a hole in it and we could put a finger in and feel it. It was hard to leave that awesome exhibit.

Books and gifts, related to the Titanic, were on sale at a special gift shop within the exhibit.