All the above relates to the big new hotel at Tampa Bay, but all of it is written at the Inn, in Port Tampa, distant from Tampa Bay proper nine miles. The Inn is “little,” it accommodates only seventy-five guests, but it is a gem of a hotel. It is built on, or rather over, the water on piles, and is like an island, being actually surrounded by water. There is always a pleasant breeze on one side of the house, and a breeze is very grateful in this latitude. As I write, the mercury in a thermometer hanging outside my bedroom window marks 75 degrees; this is at 5 P.M., Saturday, January 31. We sleep with open windows, and nothing more than your pajama or a sheet is necessary for a covering.
Two sides of the dining-room are composed entirely of sliding-windows through which you can see wild ducks and fish in great quantities. I have seen wild ducks hauled in by the waiters through the open windows of this dining-room. You can throw a line into the water as you sit at dinner and if it be properly baited you will probably find a mullet at the end of the cord before you reach your café noir.
It goes without saying that there are good sailing and fishing at Port Tampa: Spanish mackerel and the pompano abound, the latter conceded by epicures to be one of the most exquisitely flavored fish in the world. Here also is the famous tarpon—Silver King he has been christened. In fact Port Tampa is a very paradise for sportsmen. It is easy to supply the table with oysters, fish and game in profusion. The table by the way is liberally provided, and the service by Swiss and French waiters is good.
The dining-room of the Tampa Inn reminds you of the dining-room of the Hygeia Hotel at Old Point Comfort, not for its size, but for its water surroundings, and the scene outside brings up recollections of the Surf Hotel at Fire Island. Picnic Island, across the Gulf one mile, might be a bit of Long Island. But there the similarity ends because the Inn, unlike the Surf Hotel, is a new house and is luxuriously furnished.
Steamers leave here weekly (every Tuesday) for Mobile, and tri-weekly (Monday, Thursday and Saturday), for Key West and Havana.
The railway depot conveying you to Tampa Bay (frequent daily trains), is at the door of the hotel, and from this same depot you can get a through car to Jacksonville or to New York.
The rates at the Inn are four and five dollars a day. It is proposed to keep it open all the year.
