NEW SMYRNA BEACH - I’ve just pulled into this Atlantic coast town for the first time when I spot a place to eat that fronts the beach. I step inside at The Breakers and find a super casual set-up with touches of Florida kitsch and a huge, long seating bar up against the windows for folks to check out the ocean.
I pull up a chair by the window, which is open, and order a blackened mahi sandwich and a local beer from a waitress who calls me “Sugar.” I’m thinking I’ll quietly gaze out at the water and slowly eat my lunch, but a group of ladies to my left has other ideas. From what I can gather they’re on vacation, down from Wisconsin for some fun in the sun and a birthday celebration.
They want to know my name and where I’m from, so we chat a bit. Then come the vanilla vodka shots and a singing Happy Birthday greeting for one of the group.
“Hey, we gotta get outside for the rocket,” one woman suddenly tells me.
“Rocket? What rocket?”
“Space X has a rocket going up in five minutes from Cape Canaveral,” she replies. “It’s only about 30 miles south of here.”
I ask the waitress for my bill and wolf down the last couple bites of my sandwich. We dash out as a group and gather on the white sand beach just as the rocket thrusts itself airborne, a small flash of orange in the blue Florida sky.
I’ve only been in New Smyrna Beach a half-hour and I’ve already toasted the birthday of a total stranger, sang a song and watched my first live rocket launch. A little voice in my head is saying, “I think I’m going to like this place.”
Nothing over the next 40 hours changes my mind. I discover a fun Florida beach town with a fine stretch of sand, friendly locals, cool shops, a wonderful art gallery and community centre and an engaging museum worker who spins marvellous stories about the town’s colourful history. I also have a couple of fine meals, ride my bike on the beach and have a fine chat with a local man about fishing etiquette.
At the New Smyrna Beach Museum of History, Barbara Zafuto, who’s originally from Grand island N.Y., just outside Buffalo, shows me exhibits about the town’s first woman mayor, Hannah Detwiler Bonnet, who rented cottages on the beach back in the 1920’s and decided to run for council when she felt city councillors were ignoring her area of town.
“They’ve been pushing me around for years, now I’m going to push back,” she is alleged to have told her supporters.
She lost, but later ran again. She is said to have reminded the city’s women voters that she had helped lead the fight for women’s suffrage.
“No matter who your husband tells you to vote for, vote for me,” she told fellow female voters.
Bonnet got elected, and, after a period of being entirely ignored by her male counterparts, ended up winning the mayor’s job. She enacted major reforms and cleaned up City Hall, much to the surprise of many onlookers.
Zafuto used to lead tours of New Smyrna Beach dressed up as Mayor Bonnet.
“I put on white gloves, pearls and a big hat,” she tells me. “Oh, and plenty of attitude.”
When I checked in with her recently she said she no longer leads tours of the museum and doesn’t do the Mayor Bonnet tour, but she’s toying with the idea of doing the mayoral tour again.
Zafuto points out several other wonderful exhibits that reinforce my love for the kind of personal stories you find at small-town or small-city museums like hers. One concerns an old sugar mill that had fallen into disrepair. The owners’ wife pretended it was a mission built by Spanish settlers back in the day. Later, Zafuto says, the woman gave tours and told visitors who flocked there that Christopher Columbus had built it on a visit to Florida in the 1490’s.
The woman who gave the tours later became, wait for it, one of the founding members of the Florida Historical Society.
Off to one side of the museum when I was there was a great display on the history of surfing in New Smyrna Beach.
On a far more sombre note, Zafuto points out old photos of African Americans who came to work in the area.
“They had to ride in the back cars, and, when they got off the train, they were ordered to get off on the west side. That’s when, when you come to cities in Florida, you find that Blacks usually live on the west side of town.”
Around the corner on Canal Street I take a brief tour of a wonderful gallery/community centre called The Hub on Canal. Locals bought a derelict building in the downtown core and fixed it up a few years ago when nobody wanted to be in the area. It helped lead a welcome resurgence, and you’ll now find a bright, thriving downtown with cute shops, a pretty park and an old-time barber shop where I stopped to chat with locals and get a haircut.
It’s a cool space, with swirling walls, lots of light and a small garden out back. You’ll find a series of small work spaces, each seemingly home to a vastly different style of artist. I’m told part of the space used to be a silent movie theatre.
The Hub is a charitable organization where artists can come and produce their own work and put it on display for much less than the cost of a commercial space of their own. They also do community outreach, and the building is home to everything from Spanish lessons to regular music jams.
There’s a great spirit filling the building, and I stop to admire everything from traditional watercolour paintings of Florida beaches to displays of shoes made with Venezuelan hemp and modern works that poke fun at White House residents.
One local artist, Cindy Dennis, does wonderful work with wire mesh and acrylics.
“I’ve been really wanting to have a studio and now I have one. It’s a very artsy community here.”
Vicki White from The Hub tells me that when she and others were re-building the downtown their motto was “Save the Charm.” Dennis nods when she hears the story.
“I haven’t seen any city in Florida do it any better,” she says.
I take a few minutes to walk down Flagler Avenue, the main drag on the beach side of town (across the Intracoastal Waterway from downtown). I pop into cool home décor shops, admire a skateboarder who’s flying through the air at a deserted shuffle board court and admire the surf shops selling flip flops and brightly coloured t-shirts.
Following a great sunset, dinner that night is back over the Intracoastal at a place called Riverpark Terrace, an old house with a big old porch and a fabulous garden that’s sprinkled with palm trees, riotous flowers and outside tables and chairs for al fresco dining. They serve a truly outstanding dip with your bread that features olive oil, a balsamic reduction, garlic, honey and spices. It might be the best bread dipping sauce I’ve ever had, and I’m tempted to see if I sneak some back to my room. I also have a nice piece of duck and a fabulous salad with greens, goat cheese, pecans, sliced green apples and a sweet Dijon mustard/champagne vinaigrette.
The next morning I head down to Riverfront Park to watch fishermen do their thing on the Intracoastal Waterway. I chat with a fellow who grew up near my childhood home in California and he tells me the fish are biting pretty well.
“I was here the other day and someone caught a small hammerhead shark. He was going to keep it but I said, ‘Dude, those are magnificent creatures. Put it back.’ And he did.”
As I head towards the beach I spot a woman of a certain age pedalling a bright pink bike. It’s a bit chilly out if you’re a local, and she’s got on white capri pants, a pale top and a mink coat.
I grab lunch at Ocean Breeze, a fun tiki bar/outdoor patio spot that’s just steps from the beach. What they call an appetizer portion of spicy shrimp comes with a good dozen fat specimens that feels more like a main course to me.
The tourism board has arranged a couple hours for me to try a bike ride on the beach, so I head to Salty Rentals. They allow cars on certain parts of the beach but there aren’t many when I’m out for a ride, and I have the sand pretty much to myself. Off to my right a few brave kids (probably Canadians) frolic in the water as lovers walk hand-in-hand.
I also take a half hour to wander aimlessly around the town on my bike, admiring small but tidy homes and snapping photos of mailboxes shaped like birds, manatees and mermaids.
I take my bike back to the folks at Salty Rentals. The folks who own the bike rental business also run the four-room Salty Mermaid Hotel, which I tour briefly. There’s no pool but it’s right on the beach, and there’s a lovely lawn with comfortable lounge chairs. Rooms are surprisingly sophisticated and bright.
It’s only a few miles south to the Canaveral National Seashore. I stop at one of the first beaches I see and find it virtually deserted on an 18-degree Celsius afternoon in December.
Further south I stop to explore Turtle Mound, an incredible collection of discarded shells that native Americans tossed over their shoulders for centuries, ultimately building a mound of white, pearly shells that rises 15 meters (50 feet) into the air.
It’s a remarkable site, and there’s also a boardwalk that takes you to the top for fine views of the deserted inlets and bays along the Intracoastal Waterway. I stop to soak in the silence as a lone, black hawk flutters overhead, perhaps looking for an afternoon snack.
A little further along I find a beautiful old home called Eldora House, where you can rest your bones on a rocking chair and admire the rustle of the palm trees and the sounds of the fishermen angling for supper on a nearby dock.
There’s a nice visitor centre in the park with a video you can watch, as well as turtle skulls, books and stuffed animals. It’s flatter than a Manitoba pancake in these parts, making it a great place for cyclists.
I have my dinner on Flagler Avenue at a fun place called Aa Garden Fusion, which features good Thai/South Asian food and a nice garden out back. The Pad Thai is fairly tame but another large portion, and the crispy spring rolls are just right.
I get up early the next morning to catch the sunrise and spot a group of locals hanging out at the Flagler Avenue Boardwalk, which overlooks the beach.
“About time you got here,” one says to a late arrival. Pretty soon they’re talking about the weather or inquiring about a buddy’s health.
One of the men, Dave from Indiana, tells me he’s been coming out for the sunrise every morning for seven years. He points out an older gentleman over near a picnic bench.
“Dick there is the group leader; he’s been here for ten years.”
I linger for a moment, admiring their easy banter and the genuine caring tone in their voices. It’s clear this is a community, and I feel like an intruder with my camera and my note pad, so I slowly slide back to my car for the drive north to Ocala, a wide smile on my face and a beautiful sunrise over my back shoulder.
IF YOU GO
HOTELS
The Hampton Inn and Suites in New Smyrna Beach is a few short blocks from the water and features nice rooms with a small pool, free breakfast and warm cookies in the evening. Staff are quite helpful. They also have games you can borrow, including checkers, Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly and more.
