South Florida - Fort Lauderdale
Florida Field Notes · Declassified
Sunblock by Day.
Insect Repellent by Night.
America’s Australia: hot, humid, hurricane-prone—and one of the best launchpads for disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.
Ah, Florida—America’s Australia. Not quite a prison colony, nevertheless a sunny place for shady people. Joke.
The Call
Let Us Start With the Obvious: It Is Hot.
All these old folks who retire here are doing a dress rehearsal for hell—okay, actually heck. When they end up there, it is Boca Raton all over again.
Heck is other people, and you meet them in the Sunshine State.
The Threshold
Sunblock by Day, Insect Repellent by Night
Yes, there are alligators crawling around—but let us talk about insects.
The land is full of huge bugs. Florida has palmetto bugs, which are roaches with wings. It has eighty species of mosquitoes. Then there are the swarming lovebugs that attack your windscreen and grille.
These lovebugs, like Burmese pythons and zebra mussels, arrived from elsewhere— apparently on holiday to visit the theme parks. They are very good at mating but do not last very long. They hatch, they mate, they perish—and, when they enter the path of your car, they go splat.
The Foreign Land
The Coastline Becomes a Departure Lounge
Overlooking all these inconveniences, three of the best reasons to visit Florida are the ports that take you through the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.
The Trials
Heat, Humidity and the Necessary Escape
The Revelation
Florida Is Not the Destination. It Is the Door.
High humidity today. Still, the seascapes are beautiful, with all those boats and cruise ships.
The joke is that Florida is difficult. The revelation is that difficulty is only the foreground. Beyond it sits the water: departure boards disguised as harbours, ships waiting like invitations, and a horizon that makes the heat feel temporary.
The Return
The Archive Proves the Journey Happened
A photograph here. A ship there. A day in port. A visit to the Space Coast. The pieces appear casual until the archive reveals the route.
The Elixir
What Is the Best Sea Story?
The one you tell. Florida supplies the heat, humidity, insects, ports and ships. The horizon supplies the invitation. The transformation begins when you stop treating the coast as an ending and recognise it as a threshold.