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You Aren't In Tampa Bay If You're Dry

Tribune file photo by CLIFF MCBRIDE (2008)

Joggers enjoy their early-morning run along Bayshore Boulevard near downtown Tampa.

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By STEVE OTTO

sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: January 28, 2009

Visitors this week probably have noticed that the locals get a little annoyed when someone refers to where we live as Tampa Bay. If you ask directions and don't keep moving, you'll get the lecture about Tampa being the city and the other one that body of water we pay exorbitant prices to live by.

Tampa Bay has an extraordinary history, including today, the anniversary of the Blackthorn disaster. I'll get back to that.

When Hernando de Soto sailed into the Bay in 1539 he was so taken with the place he called it Bahia de Espiritu Santo, or Bay of the Holy Spirit. Of course, like a lot of tourists, he was a little heavy-handed, and the locals were happy to see him go.

Through the years, a number of characters have passed this way - even Old Ironsides, the USS Constitution. The list has included politicians and pirates and even the queen of England in her royal yacht. Robert E. Lee surveyed it, and Teddy Roosevelt sailed out of town with his Rough Riders to fight a war. In World War II, pilots training at MacDill Field put so many aircraft in the drink that they came up with a slogan, "One a day in Tampa Bay."

There have been more than a few unhappy moments. Come back during hurricane season and you'll notice people around here tend to watch the Weather Channel. It hasn't happened in a long time, but given the right (or wrong) circumstances, Tampa actually would become Tampa Bay.

The Blackthorn

I mentioned that today is one of those darker days. It was about 8 p.m. Jan. 28, 1980, when the 180-foot Coast Guard cutter Blackthorn, approaching the Sunshine Skyway, collided almost head-on with the 605-foot tanker SS Capricorn, which was carrying 152,000 barrels of oil.

The port side of the Capricorn scraped against the Blackthorn's port side, doing minor damage.

But Capricorn's 7-ton anchor snagged the Blackthorn. When the anchor line became taut, the cutter was pulled over, capsizing and sinking within 10 minutes in more than 40 feet of water. Of a crew of 43 people, 23 died, the worst peacetime disaster in Coast Guard history.

Today, the Blackthorn lies some 20 miles off Clearwater Beach, an artificial reef. Each year, the Coast Guard holds a memorial service.

Less than four months later, May 9, was a blustery, foggy morning as squalls blew across Tampa Bay.

Into The Abyss

At almost the same location as the Blackthorn sinking, the empty phosphate freighter Summit Venture headed for the Port of Tampa.

The rain was tropical storm force and visibility was near zero.

Making a critical turn into the narrow channel between the two main piers of the Skyway, the Summit Venture slammed into one of the bridge piers, taking the pier and roadway far above with it.

Where there had been a bridge was a gaping hole; cars and a Greyhound bus plunged 150 feet into the dark water below. One car came to a stop, hanging out into the abyss. Of those who fell into the Bay, there would be one survivor, whose truck bounced off the deck of the Summit Venture. Thirty-five others died that morning.

Most of us live along the shores of Tampa Bay because we love it, even on those days when red tide produces a smell you won't forget.

I hope you have a chance to get out on the water while you're here or maybe just meander along one of the piers or that great Bayshore Boulevard sidewalk that stretches from downtown all the way to Ballast Point (where you can get a decent grouper sandwich).

Keyword: Otto Graphs, for more of Steve Otto's musings

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