An epiphany is a revelation, in the sense that something previously hidden is revealed. It’s also an important Christian holiday celebrated on January 6 each year, though there’s little consistency in what, exactly, is being celebrated, or how to celebrate it.
Living on the East Coast among its large Puerto Rican population, I’ve long been aware of Three Kings Day, the day 12 days after Christmas that the Magi finally made it to Bethlehem and delivered their gifts to baby Jesus. January 6 is also the beginning of Mardi Gras season, and I’ve enjoyed a few King cakes. But I didn’t understand that what made this day significant was the Epiphany, when the Magi, representing civilizations afar, acknowledged that the newborn baby was in fact Christ.
In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Epiphany commemorates not the visit of the Magi but rather the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. The outcome is the same: this was the moment that Jesus became manifest to the world as the son of God.
Let me stop here and be clear that I have not been born again in my travels through the South. I don’t especially believe in these events as historical fact and certainly not as spiritual guidance. But in my austere Congregational upbringing, there were no epiphanies: we were meant to come to a rigorous, intellectual reckoning with our relationship to Christ and the world around us. Part of me has always longed for more ritual and joy around our collective understanding of our place here on Earth and relationship to one another.
And perhaps we embarked on this expedition seeking a few epiphanies of our own.
Getting to the point: Tarpon Springs, Florida, was our landing point following a 19-hour overnight crossing of the Gulf of Mexico. Tarpon Springs also hosts the nation’s largest Greek-American population and a notable Epiphany ceremony. Having finally arrived somewhere reliably temperate, if not necessarily truly warm, and having spent a long night surrounded by nothing but enormous seas and skies, we were ready for epiphany.
The American Greek Orthodox celebration revolves around the blessing of the waters, and, we were told, by extension the blessing of all of nature. This makes sense: the Greeks have long been mariners, and Tarpon Springs grew to prominence as a major sponge diving center. The Greeks who came to Florida to share their sponge expertise also brought their aesthetic and culinary traditions. As an aside, we ate extremely well in Tarpon Springs. Opa!
The day prior to Epiphany proper, a high-ranking religious leader (we’re not sure exactly who he was, but he had a fancy outfit) came to the docks to bless the fleet.
He didn’t continue the blessings all the way down to Long Way Home, which was a bit disappointing, but we we made our way to the Five Branches Brewery, where our new acquaintance Yianni seemed to work sporadically, and drowned our sorrows. This brewery was just soft-opened a couple of months ago by an earnest crew-cut guy who’s still serving in the military reserves. Our beers were poured by a tattooed woman with short, gelled-back hair who talked about her young sons and her other job in a doctor’s office. Sitting at the bar were a couple of women who live outside Boston in the summers and in Dunedin Florida in the winters, boating extensively in both places.
The Tarpon Springs Epiphany, reportedly in standard Greek tradition, involves kids aged 16 to 19 jumping into the water to retrieve a cross tossed into the water. While most communities let any young person in good standing with the Church give it a try, Tarpon Springs limits participation to boys, which has generated some but apparently not enough pushback.
I did some early morning run reconnaissance of Spring Bayou and saw the small boats that the boys would be jumping from lined up for the ceremony. Also, manatees.
We came back a few hours later and found crowds gathered for the festivities. Nothing was happening, though; everybody who mattered was still at St. Nicolas Church for a 4-hour ceremony, after which a procession including the 50+ young divers in their swimsuits and bare feet would make their way a mile or so out to the bayou. The crowds continued to swell; eventually the kids and dignitaries arrived, and the boys went flying into the water to climb into their boats.
We had been assured that this would be the most entertaining element of the whole event, as the boys tended to overload and capsize the boats. This year, though, they did a pretty good job, with only one boat flipping over and its passengers climbing up to float on the overturned hull. The poor wet kids then huddled in the cool air as the Archbishop of the Orthodox Church, the Prime Minister of Greece, and other assorted luminaries droned on, and on, and on. They told us how the sacred waters, which they had blessed back at the church and would now pour into the bayou, flowed out through the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic Ocean and beyond, ultimately touching all the waters and shores of the world.
Finally the Archbishop tossed a white cross into the Bayou and the boys splashed vigorously after. Within a few seconds Hunter Sakadales emerged from the water with the cross in his hand, and it was over.
We wandered back into town looking for lunch and were interrupted by a motorcade circling the town’s small roundabout. “It’s the Prime Minister!” said Matt. “That’s the Secret Service!”
One of the guys with earpieces paused to confirm, “Uh-huh.”
The motorcade moved slowly, given all the traffic, and we were able to catch up and see that the entourage was stopping for lunch at Hellas, where we had eaten dinner a few nights earlier. We considered going inside too, but instead ordered gyros at Limoni’s, a takeout window across the street. While we were waiting for our food, the PM came back outside to mingle with the crowd. He was the typical tall, dark, slender European leader. (The next day we heard he made his way to Mar-a-Lago to meet the U.S. president.)
We ran into Yianni again and decided to take our gyros back over to Five Branches for another beer. Not much had changed. Despite the estimated 20,000-plus people in town for the celebration, we were the only ones in there. Starting a new business is hard, even during Epiphany.
Nevertheless, following in the wake of those blessed waters seems like an auspicious way to kick off the new decade. The next day we cast off in search of new revelations.
