Looking Across the Sea

Looking Across the Sea 120904

When I was on the beach yesterday I dreamed of looking across the ocean to see the land on the other side. Of course, the earth is not flat and I know that in reality you cannot see very far out to sea. But, it's still fun to dream.

I already had the latitude of Fernandina Beach's weather station (30.672 N) from my earlier research on weather here. So, I put the latitude in Google maps and, using trial and error, found the longitude of the first landfall on the other side of the Atlantic. Enter 30.672 N 9.883 W in Google maps and you will see it ... Morocco. In fact it's right at Tamri National Park. The nearest coastal cities of any size are Agadir (metro population 678,000) about 25 miles south and Essaouira (population 70,000) about 50 miles north. RS visited Essaouira about three years ago and I will add some of her pictures soon.

Now that I know what I am looking at across the sea, I got to thinking about where Fernandina Beach is headed. The more I discover about this place the more I like it. But, I have yet to see written the vision of where people want Fernandina Beach to be in 10 or 20 years. It's possible I have missed it, or maybe it doesn't exist. Maybe vision is too corporate a way to think and I should just accept that Fernandina has gotten this far and will do okay in the future.

One idea I have is for Fernandina Beach to have sister cities. This would be part of a vision to make Fernandina Beach more attractive to international visitors (or investors). If this is a direction for Fernandina, I think that Essaouira would be a good sister city to consider. If you read the history of Essaouira and how it survives today there are a lot of similarities to Fernandina Beach. Of course, there are major differences too, but that's what you want in a sister city.

-CR
Photos by RS