some memories from Florida Young Naturists’s Spring Bash and nature trail at Sunny Sands Resort

I thought I’d skip a report on this event entirely due to lack of photography, but when I mentioned it in the previous post, I realized I had to share with the world at least some of my good memories – so here are a few words about the Florida Young Naturists‘ Spring Bash and its venue, Sunny Sands Resort. It’s a spacious resort, mostly oriented to permanent or part-time residents; FYN certainly changes its pace! There are some basic amenities typical to a naturist resort, such as a pool, a hot tub, volleyball court; the restaurant seems to be open only during such events. The Spring Bash itself was very well organized, with numerous fun activities, seminars and workshops hosted by the participants: e.g., capoeira and acro-yoga (by yours truly), salsa, juggling, fire-spinning, discussions on polyamory… There were professional masseurs too, and needless to say they were very much in demand – one had to sign up for a session. I got probably the best deep tissue massage I had ever had (and to add a cherry on the cake, the masseur was my namesake!) All these activities were free, and there was a good sense of community and active participation. In the evening there was live music, and the band got naked too. When we gathered around the fire pit at night, one guy started singing a Swahili song, and then taught us all the chorus (which alternated between male and female voices) – it was a beautiful experience! Thus, it was a very busy event, but you could always leave for a walk on the nature trail if you wanted some quiet time.

As it often happens, naturist events and venues have prohibitive or very restrictive photo policies, so I cannot provide a full report from FYN Spring Bash in the same sense, as I do from Burning Man, for example. But here are some photos from Sunny Sands’ nature trail, which is worth a mention too (even with a risk of confusing naturists and naturalists 😀 )

woodpecker 0000 Sunny Sands Resort, Florida, USA

Woodpeckers seemed to be particularly active at the time.

woodpecker 0001 Sunny Sands Resort, Florida, USA

This one literally stuffed his beak with larvae (probably saving them for the chicks).

woodpecker 0002 Sunny Sands Resort, Florida, USA

But I’m not sure they’d touch this hairy caterpillar.

caterpillar 0000 Sunny Sands Resort, Florida, USA

There used to be a pond of a decent size, but most of the water has vanished now.

crane 0000 Sunny Sands Resort, Florida, USA

But what’s left still provides home for water lilies, frogs

crane 0001 Sunny Sands Resort, Florida, USA

and a family of cranes!

crane 0002 Sunny Sands Resort, Florida, USA

I’ve never seen wild cranes so close, though these ones are clearly used to human presence.

crane 0003 Sunny Sands Resort, Florida, USA

(And perhaps it makes them feel safer that the humans around them are naturally naked :-))

Playalinda beach… after Florida Young Naturists’ Spring Bash

Playalinda is one of the few official naturist beaches in Florida and is certainly one of the best overall. I visited it last April as part of the group outing at the Naked Spring Bash of Florida Young Naturists.

naturist 0001 Playalinda beach, Florida, USA

It’s a great beach with plenty of space whether you are with a big group or want to chill quietly enjoying the sound of waves.

view 0000 Playalinda beach, Florida, USA

If you want to enjoy the waves in a more active manner, Playalinda is known to have a pretty good swell for surfing, but it wasn’t the case at the time of my visit. However, the waves were perfect for body surfing.

naturist 0000 Playalinda beach, Florida, USA

Naked body surfing is as natural as it gets when it comes syncing with the ocean and feeling it power!

Unlike the urban Haulover Beach in Miami, where we went after FYN Spring Bash 4 years ago, Playalinda is set in a natural surrounding of the Cape Canaveral National Seashore.

naturist 0002 Playalinda beach, Florida, USA

Nudists usually congregate at the section near the farthest parking of Playalinda beach (and as the commentator indicated below, just a little further north there is an officially clothing-optional Apollo beach),

view 0001 Playalinda beach, Florida, USA

but even from there you can see well the NASA Shuttle Landing Facility… Those were the days, when you could sunbathe naked and watch the shuttle lift off into space! Nowadays you may be lucky to see the launch of a rocket by SpaceX though. So, next time I’ll try to time my visit well (and check the surf forecast too).

 

fun naturist events this spring in the USA

Sorry for having been quiet the entire month of March, but I was busy getting new material in Florida 🙂 While it’s not ready to be published yet, I’d like to announce a few events that sound like fun and well in the spirit of αctive naturists.

In a little more than a week, from 9-12 AprilFlorida Young Naturists will hold their 7th Naked Spring Bash. Joe and I visited their event in 2011 and had great time! And I must say, this year’s schedule looks even better, so it’s a shame I can’t return to the Sunshine State soon again. I like their emphasis on dance workshops this time.

On the 18th of April, Travasuns will have their monthly Indoor Pool Party in Long Island, NY, which will be my last, and unfortunately only second, this season. I usually go to their events throughout winter, but this yeah I’ve had schedule conflicts. It’s a low-key event at a rented gym with saunas, hang-out pool, pizza and wallyball.

Austin Naked Yoga will host Naked Yoga Camp for men on 7-10 May at Lotus Ranch in Wimberley, Texas. My friend Eddy will teach a movement workshop there, say hi if you attend it!

YNOTU (Young Nudists of Texas United) will host their second Nude Games on Memorial Weekend,  22-25 May, at a campground near Dallas. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend again, but the program looks like fun: flag football, tug of war, a few varieties of volleyball among other things. However, it seems to me, they downplayed the athletic component this year. If any of you go there, I’ll be happy to hear your thoughts!

Naked Spring Bash with Florida Young Naturists

This post was actually about to be published in my old blog, but right when I clicked the ‘publish’ button, Google suddenly deleted my blog… irrevocably. Well, enough complaining, now the blog is back, and several months after the first attempt this post is finally out! It is actually a good time, because Florida Young Naturists group has just announced (through their Facebook page, their website is not updated) the next Naked Spring Bash in April this year. So here is the original text, I leave it unchanged:

One of the reasons why I haven’t posted last weeks was because Joe visited me, and we went to South Florida for few days and had a lot of naked fun in the sun. We actually spent most of our time there naked: the CouchSurfing hosts we stayed with were also nudists, we went to the famous Haulover Beach (that is where the World Record Skinny-Dip took place) and got a chance to swim in the buff in a couple of other places, but most strikingly we visited a nudist colony Sunsport Gardens for the Naked Spring Bash organized by Florida Young Naturists. I came across their website a couple of years ago and thought it would be fantastic to join the group of naked peers that organized numerous fun events. I was reminded about FYN once again at the Nude Year’s Eve, as two of its members were there as well. The program for the Naked Spring Bash sounded really cool and after the long and cold winter we were craving for the sun and warmth, so it was amazing that Joe and I could go there together.

Too bad we didn’t get in this video, but they’re right, you can do all kind of fun things there!

The event included all kinds of activities.

I loved the drum circle around the fire on the first night. There was a dozen of drummers and other people were dancing around the fire. I got a frame drum of pandeiro type, the same as we use in capoeira, which I practice, so I could play and dance at the same time. And of course there was body art.

Joe got Sun and Moon from me,

but he took an easy path and “painted” handprints on me 🙂

Spring Bash participant were given a free spot for camping by the pond, and when we woke up, we got a chance to meet a couple of its friendly dwellers.

Then we went for a walk around the gardens with beautiful tropical and subtropical plants.

The tiny island in the pond was quite picturesque. Then there was some pool time and lunch, naked lunch of course. I was disappointed though, that they mostly provided fast-food and served it on single-use ware. I’d expect a naturist venue to be at the frontier of health- and eco-consciousness.

In the afternoon, there was a short excursion through the bit of tropical forest that belonged to Sunsport Gardens. We were very pleased to find this forest with many native plants of South Florida, and we went there on our own a couple of times again.

In a couple of places there were tables and benches, so you could have a quiet lunch in the forest as well.

The plants were diverse, there were some bamboos, but most of the forest was pine and palm trees,

some of which we tried to climb.

As to the Spring Bash itself, there were also volleyball matches, sauna, disco… but we were too busy enjoying it to take pictures 😉

On the last day of the Spring Bash, most of the people went to Haulover Beach.

But besides having nice company at the beach, when we went for a swim we were accompanied by a school of small fish… Either they mistook us for their parents or thought we’d simply provide them shelter from sharks 🙂

In any case, they followed us for half an hour!

I was quite surprised to find out that Haulover Beach was just one of two official clothing-optional beaches in South Florida.

But when we were driving around we found a couple of secluded spots in mangrove forests, where we went skinny-dipping too.