As a Florida native, I regret that I have yet to visit Playalinda Beach. Probably because I’m not a nudist.
It is, according to this Google Images search I’m looking at as I type this, quite lovely. A beach that genuinely lives up to the translation of its redundant name. In case you didn’t know, “Playa linda” means “beautiful beach,” making its full name “Beautiful Beach Beach.” It’s like calling an ATM an ATM machine.
Its serene coastal beauty is being ruined by one of the world’s top ruiners of things: Elon Musk. Musk dabbles in rockets. His rocket company, SpaceX, is in the midst of a feud with a nudist collective that claims Playalinda Beach as its go-to beach for letting it all hang out.
Nudists Have Had It With Elon Musk and SpaceX
SpaceX wants to expand operations at Kennedy Space Center. This means Playalinda Beach, part of the Canaveral National Seashore and one of Florida’s four legal nude beaches, could be closed as many as 60 days a year for launches and tests.
The apparently quite real organization—known as The American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR)—is in such a huff over this that you’d think they’d just sat on their balls. The AANR had been raising hell in the way nudist retirees do, with impassioned Zoom calls and sternly worded press releases.
“It’s probably a quarter million people that travel and think like I do, who look for destinations that are beautiful and surrounded by like-minded people,” said Deborah-Sue Stevens of AANR, referring to nudists. She fears these closures would devastate a community that values freedom, nature, and unencumbered sunbathing.
AANR Executive Director Erich Schuttauf pointed out that this isn’t just about nudists. This affects the larger, clothed public, too. Playalinda is a public beach. If it’s no longer an option for nudists, all those naked old people are going to migrate to Apollo Beach in nearby Volusia County.
That will overwhelm the designated nude zone and create new drama between beachgoers who like to feel the unfettered breeze between their cheeks.
Space.com reports that Max West, a guy who popped into the public Zoom call to defend Musk and his rockets, waved off the nudist’s concerns. “The turtles and the nudists will have to migrate,” he said, as if those two things were equally inconvenient. “That’s the cost that you have to pay for this incredible stuff that’s happening.”
The complaints of the nudists were likely falling on deaf ears. SpaceX’s tower at Kennedy has already been under construction for over a year, even if the FAA is still dragging its feet on the environmental review.
The nudists (or turtles) were never going to win this one.
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