Brian, I'm not a native but I've been here a really long time. Like you, I know where I'm going to retire...I bought my "retirement home" years ago, I live in it, and it will be paid off before I'm 65. I can't imagine living anywhere else. Diving is why I moved here. It is why I stayed here.
Pretty much everyone I know (except my ScubaBoard friends) is trying to move out of state or plans to move out of state when they retire. Even my dive club friends have these plans. All I can say to them is...buh bye!!!
Most of them think oh well, if I live up in, for instance, Tennessee, I can just fly to places and dive on vacation. Heh, that would never satisfy me. I can drive home after work, grab my gear, drive to the beach in under five minutes and swim out to a coral reef and catch dinner. There is no place else in the continental U.S. where you can beach dive to a coral reef. I think the reason I love beach diving so much is because...we can and nobody else can!
Funny, one of my dive club friends who is planning to retire to TN said 'but Debby it's great up there, everyone greets you and says hello! Not like down here where nobody says hello!" I replied, "having strangers say hello is not a personal need of mine. Living where it's warm, living where I can dive? Now THAT'S a personal need!!!"
Another laugh, many people think they are escaping the rude Florida drivers but I recently spent two weeks up there on a cycling trip...all the rude Florida drivers moved up there. You can't escape them.
A friend who, like you Brian, was a native, moved to North Carolina two years ago thinking it would be so great. She bought all of the lines about living up there hook, line, and sinker. Two years later she is beyond miserable but she can't afford to move back. Even after looking at homes that she would have thumbed her nose at previously, she can't afford the huge property tax increase because she lost her Save Our Homes when she moved. She is MISERABLE. And vacation time ends up being spent visiting relatives rather than going on dive trips, so there goes that idea.
I know I'm preaching to the choir but thank you for giving me the opportunity to give one of my personal rants. Florida is an awesome place to live and if you don't like it...I-95 goes in both directions!
Emcbride, thank you so much for the compliment...it's so nice to hear someone say something positive about our beautiful state, divers' paradise.
All in a skin shirt and board shorts!
I will never understand it, although he gets sea sick looking at the water.
