The Deep Harvest

On the wooden deck of the Agia Sophia, Captain Elian Diaz prepares for his first descent of the day into the warm, turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Diaz, sixty-three, is a sponge diver in Tarpon Springs, the Florida Gulf coast community built by Greek immigrants in the late nineteenth century. He is one of the few remaining divers who still use a traditional, heavy brass copper helmet and a weighted canvas suit, rather than modern scuba gear. His skin is leathered from years of sun exposure, and his ears are permanently damaged from the pressure of the depth, but he possesses an intimate landmark map of the underwater sponge beds.

The paradox of Diaz’s life is his deep pride in his traditional, historic craft, combined with his total lack of sentimentality about it. He does not view sponge diving as a romantic connection to his Greek heritage, but as a hard, dirty, and dangerous job that has ruined his health and left him with chronic joint pain. He would prefer his son to work in an air-conditioned office in Tampa, yet he is bitterly disappointed that the younger generation has shown no interest in learning how to find the wool sponges. "It is a miserable way to make a living," Diaz said, as his crew bolted his heavy copper helmet onto his shoulders. "But once you are down there alone, you forget about the pain."

The compressor on the deck of the Agia Sophia begins to thrum, sending air through a thick rubber hose into Diaz's helmet. Slowly, he descends the wooden ladder into the green water, his heavy lead shoes pushing him down toward the limestone seabed forty feet below. For the next three hours, he will walk through the dim, silent world of the Gulf, using a three-pronged hook to pluck sponges from the rocks. He is a relic of another century, performing a task that has remained unchanged for thousands of years, entirely detached from the busy world above.