If you’ve spent any time on the Space Coast, you probably already know about the north end of Playalinda Beach. It’s one of those open secrets that locals shrug their shoulders when it is mentioned, often followed by a well-worn joke or two. Horror of horrors, the most northern area of the beach is unofficially a clothing-optional area, that is, a nude beach!
Canaveral National Seashore spokesperson Laura Henning told Florida Today back in 2024 that the nude sunbathing at Playalinda is hardly a rumor. “It’s not rumors because if you go out there, you will see nude people,” she said plainly. “It’s been that way for decades.”
Indeed.
But this is all about a sign, not the beach. It doesn’t encourage anything — it’s simply a heads-up notice so that visitors, families included, aren’t surprised by what they might find at the north end of the beach. Practical stuff. Information parents can actually use.
So it raised more than a few eyebrows when it emerged that the informational signs at Canaveral that simply tell visitors they may encounter nude sunbathing ended up in a federal database of materials flagged for potential removal by the National Park Service. Is the AI hallucinating again?
Is our government worried that someone might be offended by a sign?
What’s The Kerfuffle?
Over the summer, National Park Service employees across the country were directed to submit signs, brochures, exhibits, and other materials for review under an executive order targeting anything that displays what the administration calls “improper partisan ideology,” a “false reconstruction of American history,” content that “inappropriately disparages Americans” or, finally, strays from themes of “beauty, grandeur and abundance” of the natural landscape.
The bulk of the deal with Civil War history, Black and Indigenous heritage, and climate change science, the usual political flash points. But scroll far enough through the spreadsheet, and you’ll find our little corner of Florida staring back at you: Playalinda Beach. For the ‘Clothing Optional’ warning sign.
Whether the sign survives the review remains to be seen. According to the implementation timeline, parks were to be notified of required changes in mid-August, with all “inappropriate content” removed or covered by early fall.
Sign or no sign, people will still head to the north end of Playalinda Beach, and leave with sunburnt private bits. It’s the au naturale order of things, I suppose.
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Note: credit to SFGate for noticing this story first and giving me the idea to write my own.
Author: Charles Boyer
NASA kid from Cocoa Beach, FL, born of Project Apollo parents and family. I’m a writer and photographer sharing the story of spaceflight from the Eastern Range here in Florida.
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