Weather Induced Attitude

Daytona Beach, FL
29 14.12 N 081 01.44 W

Thursday was sunny, warm and calm.  We decided to stay put and to laze around Daytona Beach for anohther day.   We walked the streets, waded in the surf at the beach, and met Kerry for dinner.  Kerry is a high school class mate who lives near by.   Today, we're meeting Fergus and Carol for breakfast.  They are a couple we met at a Westsail rendezvous a couple of years ago.  It has been a lot of fun.

We had planned on moving today down to Rockhouse Creek and to explore the Ponce Inlet area by dinghy.  Then, we'd move on to Titusville and maybe take a mooring for a day or two.   But, the weather is changing.  Starting this afternoon, and extending for two days it will be very windy and cooler.  That weather induces a very different attitude.  Now our thoughts are on moving south ASAP, and hooking up to a mooring in Vero.   We'll have strong winds behind us all the way so the passage should be fast.

Is that the same kind of weather-induced attitude that makes the populations of cold climates so industrious while populations of tropical area so laid back?   Probably so.

In the 1960s, I spent most of a year in Daytona Beach.  I worked at General Electric's Apollo Support Department in Daytona.  They put me up in a hotel room overlooking the beach.  I learned a lot about Daytona, its nature, its tourists, and its people in that year.    I enjoyed seeing the motorcycle week, then Daytona 500 race week, then family vacation week, then college kids spring break week, one after the other.  We did clambakes on the beach, and I found a beached whale one morning.

Sadly, Daytona has changed for the worse.  The Beach is much narrower than it used to be.  Even at high tide, the beach in the 1960s was up to 100 yards wider than it is today.  It has suffered lots of erosion.   Also, the air up and down the beach appears hazy with pollution.  Also, some of the surf is a nasty yellow color suggesting unthinkably nasty stuff.  Even the city and its populace also seem less nice then in years past.  Too bad for the tourists who are forced to vacations where the hotels are located.  There are much nicer, more pristine beaches in Florida.