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Gasparilla Island Boca is a grand spot
By Dorothy Smiljanich/Tampa Tribune
For more information``The old man's head was clear and good now and he was full of resolution but he had little hope. It was too good to last, he thought. He took one look at the great fish as he watched the shark close in. It might as well have been a dream, he thought.'' - from ``The Old Man and the Sea'' by Ernest Hemingway
Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, you must say this for George and Barbara Bush: When they needed to unwind from too many loops around the Beltway, when they needed to accept the personally unacceptable, when they needed to exhibit what Ernest Hemingway called grace under pressure while stepping down from the most powerful post in the world, they knew where to come: to Florida and this tiny community on this narrow barrier island off the state's west coast.
After all, the sea does not care whether you are a pauper or a president. The sun shines on the winners and the losers alike. And a great fish, when it takes the hook in the churning waters of Boca Grande Pass, does not care whether the fisherman at the other end is standing in a yacht or a rowboat.
The indifference of nature, not only to a man's station in life but also to mankind altogether, can be a kind of consolation, a form of benediction. So let us celebrate Gasparilla Island (named, it is said, for the same legendary pirate, Jose Gaspar, whose name graces Tampa's annual festival), and let us celebrate the town of Boca Grande, where men and women - some with old money, some with new money and some with little money - share equally in nature's rich and indifferent bounty.
GASPARILLA ISLAND
Like Sanibel and Captiva to its south, Gasparilla is a barrier island. A narrow, 7-mile-long spit of land, it is accessible by a toll bridge across Gasparilla Pass at its northern end. The island faces the Gulf of Mexico on its west, Charlotte Harbour and Gasparilla Sound on its east, and mighty Boca Grande Pass to its south.Visitors with a sufficiency of time and money may enjoy, as President Bush did in November, some serious golfing and some world-class fishing. Boca Grande claims to be the ``Tarpon Capital of the World,'' a title that we have not heard disputed in more than 30 years of living in Florida. With many residents and visitors alike, golfing and fishing are twin activities of choice.
But, limited in both time and money, we did neither. Even so, we filled a day and a half with a restorative visit - staying at the Gasparilla Inn and Cottages, wandering the tiny downtown area, walking the beaches, coveting the waterfront homes, watching the sun go down over the Gulf, enjoying a fine seafood dinner at the Temptation, and finally listening in the uncommonly quiet night to a slow rain fall over the island.
Now a bit like Palm Beach and a bit like Cedar Key, Gasparilla Island once was home to Calusa Indians, said to have lived in fishing villages centered on Charlotte Harbor. By the early 1700s, the Calusa were nearly gone, a result of their association with European explorers and their exposure to war, disease and slavery. All that remains now of the Calusa are a few of their shell mounds, scattered on these barrier islands and protected by the state.
In the 1800s, commercial and sport fishing became big business on Gasparilla. Swells from some of America's swellest families came to try their luck angling. By the Roaring '20s, the island had become a major winter watering hole for the wealthy, who built the mansions and walled estates that seem to float above the ground on a cushion of money and that even today make a stroll or drive around the island a primer of architectural styles and motifs.
The same waters that teemed with fish were uncommonly deep at the ``big mouthed'' - boca grande in Spanish - pass just off the southern tip of the island. There, a deep water port was developed, and phosphate, brought from mainland Florida by railroad on a line built in 1907, was shipped to destinations all over the world.
But the last train reportedly called in Boca Grande a decade ago, and the in-town depot has been converted into a handsome complex that includes shops and a restaurant. Although most of the length of the railroad line has been transformed into a popular bike path which is used by cyclists, walkers and golf cart riders, the old port still flexes its muscle, working as an oil terminal for a power company, and the big tankers still come calling.
With what is probably the best public beach on the island, this southern tip is in some ways a microcosm for the whole state: The neighborhood is shared by the hard-working port, new housing developments and the 144-acre Gasparilla Island State Recreation Area. How well those three - commerce, development and recreation - are integrated and balanced throughout this state is critical to its future.
But the casual visitor need not dwell on such weighty concerns and may be content to ramble along the beach - not wide, perhaps, but highly dramatic with the dark waters of the pass, waters deep as 60 or 70 feet, roiling and swirling in the background.
Here, too, is the island's most famous landmark, the Boca Grande Lighthouse, first used in 1890 and now on the National Register of Historic Places. Closed in 1966 by the Coast Guard, the lighthouse passed to the state in 1985 and restoration work was begun, with the beacon lighted again in November 1986.
The lighthouse complex, which includes a nearby wooden pavilion, was closed on the day we visited, but usually is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the last Saturday of each month.
So, we did not golf. We did not fish. We did not explore the lighthouse. We did not buy a half-million-dollar Gulf-front home. We did not go swimming. We did not see the Bushes or even Millie; they had all flown back to Washington, D.C., several days before we arrived.
But the essential restorative tonic of the island - that natural balm consisting of equal parts salt water, sunshine, sand and seabirds - washed over us, and, standing on the beach, we thought of President Bush coming here in his time of loss and of Hemingway's old man, who also fought and lost a battle, and we wondered whether Bush felt like him:
``He looked across the sea and knew how alone he was now. But he could see the prisms in the deep dark water and the line stretching ahead and the strange undulation of the calm. The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea.''FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information, write Boca Grande Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 704, Boca Grande, Fla. 33921 or call (813) 964-0568.