Real Floridians take the plagues of the season in stride. But if you're a rookie, here are the basics for survival.
By JEFF KLINKENBERG
Published June 18, 2004
[Times photo: Scott Keeler 1998]
Bathers get a close look at stingrays near the Clearwater Beach shoreline. Here’s a tip: Shuffle your way into the water, or even better, stay ashore under a shade tree.
[AP photo: 1997]
A hammerhead shark, at the photo's bottom, tries to catch a meal in the Gulf of Mexico while a beachgoer, at the photo's top, walks the shoreline in Destin. Floridians know that a summertime dip in the gulf can lead to an unexpected dinner invitation.
[IMAX Corp.]
The hammerhead shark can measure 15 feet and weigh more than 1,000 pounds. Humans aren’t usually on their menu.
Hammerhead sharks lately have been swimming along our beaches looking for stuff to eat. So far, nothing human has been on the menu. Hammerheads do eat people, though for the most part they prefer supping on careless marine animals rather than well-turned ankles. But why trust a hammerhead to make the right decision?
It's another summer in Florida, folks. In the months ahead we can look forward to unbearable heat, torrential rain, lightning, mosquitoes, cockroaches and the occasional shark. Somewhere Dante Alighieri is grinning, though Florida's version of Hades may be harsher than the inferno imagined by the medieval poet.
But I'm not complaining. After more than half a century here, I am used to summer, even hammerheads. In fact, I welcome summer most of the time. The secret is enjoying its pleasures and enduring its challenges in a manner befitting Nietzsche. What doesn't kill, you makes you stronger.
It is hard for old-timers like me to have sympathy for crybabies who complain 24-7 about summer in Florida. What were they expecting - San Francisco? Frost on the apple trees? If I moved to Alaska, I would expect to wear snowshoes and a heavy overcoat during winter. I would know enough to avoid brown bear habitat. I would be embarrassed to whine "Waaaah! It's cold here! And those bears? They're so mean!"
Toughen up, Floridians! It's not like the air-conditioning industry is going on strike any time soon. If you hate the heat, stay in the kitchen. But appreciate that generations of us made do without AC. Many still do by doing something both brave and intelligent: adapting to the season.
Tip No. 1: Hot coffee will make you sweat, but iced tea won't. Tip No. 2: Reading a book under a shade tree is cooler than walking across a mall parking lot. Tip No. 3: Avoid coats, ties and other constrictive clothing. Tip No. 4: Deodorant is good.
Duhhhhhh!
Around the house, and even outside, go barefoot if possible. Yes, St. Augustine grass isn't as kind to the feet as the soft Northern grass of your childhood. But you will get used to it.
You can even learn to live with mosquitoes. Decades ago, we had more than now because there were more woods and mangrove forests for mosquitoes to live in. On rare occasions, a mosquito did transmit disease. Yet I don't remember any widespread panic like today, when a bite on the earlobe is reason to call an ambulance. Tip No. 5: Mosquitoes are most active at dawn and dusk. Stay inside. Double duh.
Years ago, a cockroach in the silverware drawer was not reason to call out the National Guard or even a pest control company. "Better the silverware drawer than the bed," was my family's motto. Sooner or later, that happened too. My idea of a good joke was dragging a fishing line across the bare shoulders of my dad immediately after we'd spotted a roach cavorting on the wall or among his collection of beer steins. Man, did he jump.
As a grizzled veteran of the cockroach wars, I must admit I am terribly unsympathetic to this year's "Cicada Invasion," which has been front-page news for months north of the Mason-Dixon line. Down here, we like cicadas because they make pretty music and they don't join us in bed.
We prefer cicadas to the scorpions that sometimes emerge, pincers waving, from our outside water spigots. Tip No. 6: In the summer, let the water run from the hose a while before taking a drink.
During the summer, the beach is especially pleasant - at sundown or after dark. A sunbather basking on a blanket at high noon is definitely a nimrod tourist or the kind of person who wears a coat and tie in a mall parking lot and drinks from a hose without checking for scorpions.
No Real Floridian ever swims in the Gulf of Mexico during summer unless his boat has sunk. That's because we know wild animals that bite or sting are lurking just off the beach.
Every summer, naive tourists and rookie Floridians who want to cool off after gulping piping hot coffee march into the surf and step on stingrays, which have migrated inshore to spawn. Stingrays are not aggressive, but they object to being stepped on. Mainly, they swing barb-infested tails at their tormentors. Experts advise bathers to shuffle their feet along the bottom rather than marching. Bumping the side of a ray with your foot will give it a chance to flee without retaliation. Tip No. 8: Even better than shuffling is staying out of the water, period.
Real Floridians don't hate the beach, understand; we just adapt. In the summer, it is safer to enjoy the beach from the casting platform of a boat. Lately, a lot of us have been fishing from boats just off our beaches for tarpons, robust game fish that grow well over 100 pounds and leap majestically when hooked.
In the gulf, everything is always trying to eat something else. Tarpons eat crabs and little fish. Hammerhead sharks eat rays and tarpons. Hammerheads can measure 15 feet and weigh more than 1,000 pounds. Hammerheads that size lately have been biting man-sized tarpons in half.
Last week Indian Rocks fishing guide Dave Mistretta witnessed a typical hammerhead-tarpon summer encounter from his boat, Jaws Too. Here's what he wrote in his fishing column on the sports page: "While sunbathing on rafts about 200 feet from shore, two girls were startled when the attack took place. This giant shark thrashed the surface with a fury while feeding on the tarpon only 20 feet from their rafts. Both swimmers leaped off their rafts and made it safely to shore. . . . This hammerhead was estimated at 1,000 pounds with a 4-foot dorsal fin." Tip No. 9: Pay attention to 4-foot dorsal fins.
What doesn't eat you makes you stronger. Nietzsche would have appreciated a Florida summer.
- Jeff Klinkenberg can be reached at 727 893-8727 or klink@sptimes.com
