Photos of the new span at daylight and at sunset. (Photos 1987, provided by the Sunshine Skyway Dedication Commission, from the collection of the author.)

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge: Portal to Another Dimension?
As stated in Part One of this series, my first trip ever across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge was in April 1971. I was riding across with one of my aunts when we took a trip to the Ringling Museum of Fine arts followed by a trip to the Columbia Restaurant in St. Armand's Key (one of my favorite places in Florida--also that restaurant was the same restaurant where 29 years later I would find out that fellow D.O.T. employee Dick Bush's wife Jane is related to Nolan Canova!).

I would personally drive the Skyway 2½ years later when I piled three friends into my 1969 rust-color Ford Maverick and boogied down to Bishop Planetarium in Bradenton to see a November 1973 presentation on unidentified flying objects (which I might add were a very hot topic at that time as two rubes fishing the Pascagoula River in the Mississippi town of the same name claimed to have been abducted at an abandon boat dock by space aliens in October of that year).

Although my own trip down and back to the planetarium was uneventful, I will never forget noticing in this first night trip the absolute inky blackness of the Skyway causeway. The next summer, a former colleague, Greg Van Stavern, was driving his Plymouth Barracuda very late at night over the Skyway with friends after watching auto racing at the De Soto Speedway (now the Bradenton Motorsports Park) when a green luminous object barely cleared his car in the jet-black diamond skies over Tampa bay south of the main span. Regrettably, all of his passengers were fast asleep at the time and he was the only witness to this event.

One of my favorite memories dates back to November 1974 when Greg and I went to our first, and my own favorite, U.F.O. symposium. The symposium was held at the old International Inn hotel that was on the southwest corner of Westshore and Kennedy in Tampa. This grand hotel looked more like Miami than Miami itself with its wonderful 50's architecture, globe of the world and tropical landscaping (which I presume was probably designed by Florida landscape architect great Jack Holmes). At the symposium were such U.F.O. luminaries of that era including U.F.O. abductee Herbert Schermer, "Beyond Earth, Man's Contact With U.F.O's", authors Ralph and Judy Blum, and University of South Florida professor and southern director of the National Investigation Committee of Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), Dr. Robert S. Carr (who my wife, I now find out, had him as her astronomy prof! For more background on this eccentric figure, link to: http://ufos.about.com/library/weekly/aa081202a.htm).

When the question came up, "Where can one go to try to see a U.F.O. in this area?" what do you think his answer was? Why the Sunshine Skyway of course, due to its unobstructed views and lack of ambient artificial light at nighttime! Yes, in addition to hauntings and maritime disasters, the Sunshine Skyway was also a nighttime denizen of U.F.O.s, as so eloquently addressed in Captain Bill Miller's great 1997 book, "Tampa Triangle Dead Zone" (see PCR issue #134, October 14-20, 2002, yet elevated the mystique and legend of this almost sacred area even more.

To the avid botanist like myself, however, the Skyway also transported me from the warm temperate southern forest of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties to the world of the sub tropics in Manatee and Sarasota Counties. I always marveled, and still do, at the statuesque Royal Palms in Terra Ceia and the Royal Poinciana's and Coconut Palms on U.S. 41 that are within a five mile drive south of the southern end of the Skyway.

Back to "Reality": The Sunshine Skyway Bridge Gets A New Lease on Life
Forgive me as I have digressed!

As stated in last week's chapter, construction began on the new cable sway main span, the largest of its type in the world, in June 1982 and was initially opened to a marathon race called the Skyway Run on January 11, 1987. A Dedication Commission appointed by former Florida Governor Bob Graham, on February 7, 1987, officially dedicated the new span. 20,000 people walked across the bridge for the first time. The dedication included fireworks, a parade, a U.S. Coast Guard flyover and Florida notables such as former Florida Senators Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles, as well as Dedication Chairwoman and current Mayor of Tampa, Pam Iorio. The new span was open to traffic on April 30, 1987. Here are the facts behind this engineering marvel:

Length: The Main Span Bridge is 4.1 miles long.

Roadway: Two 40-foot wide roadways allow for two lanes of traffic and an emergency lane in both directions. Originally designated as U.S. Highway 19, the causeway was upgraded to Interstate standards in order to complete the final link of the Interstate 275 circumferential into Manatee County from its northern terminus at I-75 in Pasco County. With this came highway lighting, so U.F.O. spotting out there has pretty much gone the way of the Dodo.

Cost: $244 million.

Channel Clearance: Ships traveling under the main span have 1,000 feet of horizontal clearance between the two main piers, and 175 feet of vertical clearance from the waterline to the underside of the center span of the bridge.

Designers: The high level approaches were designed by Figg and Muller Engineers, Inc., and the low level approaches and trestles were designed by Florida Department of Transportation Bureau of Structures Design, and Parsons Brinkerhoff and Greiner, Inc. (now U.R.S.) designed the pier protection system.

Safety: To try to avoid another Summit Venture catastrophe, an extensive pier protection system places man-made barriers between off-course ships and six center piers. An electronic warning system advises motorists of impending hazards on the bridge. The protective bumpers and islands, referred to as "dolphins" are designed to stop off-course ships before their making contact with the bridge. The main pier dolphins can absorb more force than three fully loaded Boeing 727 commercial jetliners would generate at took off speeds of 120 knots. In all there are 36 dolphins, the largest being 60' in diameter.

Hurricane: The bridge is designed to withstand winds up to 290 miles per hour.

World's Longest Fishing Pier: The high level spans of the old bridge were dismantled by 1990 and used artificial fishing reefs in the Gulf of Mexico. The low level portions were converted into first rate recreational fishing piers, the longer of which is on the Manatee County side at 1.6 miles in length, making it the longest fishing pier in the world according to the 1986 edition of the Guinness World Book of Records.

Contractors: Main pier foundations: Hardaway Constructors, Inc. and Michael Construction Company.

Low-level approaches and trestles: Ballenger Corporation; High level approaches and main span: Paschen Contractors, Inc.; First four dolphins: Misener Marine; Remaining dolphins and islands; H.G. Harders and Sons, Inc., and Traylor Brothers.