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She hugged the captain tightly around his chest; not so much for affection, maybe a little, but as a shield against the biting wind.

Sure, it’s just October and the Floridays, as old Don Blanding called them, have finally begun and, sure, the air temp was about 71 but that wind was chilly enough to raise goose bumps. Maybe the captain had a little to do with that, too.

Floridians don’t like chill, to say nothin’ of outright cold.

Weird stuff starts happenin’ in Florida when it gets chilly.

Floridians themselves get weird.

Floridians don’t like to wear jackets. Most don’t ever like to wear socks. But all of a sudden, with just the slightest drop in air temperature and speed, here we are bundled up like a dog-sled musher and uttering such moronic expressions as, “brr-r-r-r-r.”

It’s a well-known fact Floridians just don’t do well in the cold. That’s why we’re Floridians. If we wanted to be cold, we’d be Wisconsonians or Minnesotans or Some-Other-God-Forsaken-Part-Of-The-Cold-Northonians.

The intimidating scientist, Dr. Frazier Azov, has a theory about what happens to Floridians in the cold.

Y’all know Dr. Azov. He’s the feller who developed that scale, kinda like the wind chill scale, to warn Floridians about the cold. He believes the blood of Floridians actually thins with each passin’ year spent below the 30th parallel. He developed the Frazier Azov Scale to let Sunshine Staters know how their thinnin’ blood will react to the cold.

According to the Frazier Azov Scale, a temperature of 70 degrees actually feels like 65 degrees to a five-year resident of Florida. To a 10-year resident of Florida, a temperature of 70 degrees will feel like 60 degrees. To a native Floridian, a temperature of 70 degrees — particularly the first one — feels like the freakin’ North Pole. A temperature of 40 degrees, which can happen occasionally, upsets the whole cracker metabolism.

Dr. Azov says in the extreme cold, which is anything below 60 degrees, Floridians heart rate begins to slow, blood vessels constrict, breathin’ slows and Floridians become lethargic.

Come to think of it, we use the extreme heat as an excuse for lethargy, too.

No matter, it’s the chill we’re worried about here today.

Floridians started actin’ weird in the cold. You’ll catch ‘em putting on long pants. They’ll insert a fire video in their TeeVee Boxes to get warm. You’ll see ‘em lose their minds a bit — remember the slowed metabolism — and run down to the beach where they try to roll sand into balls and throw ‘em at each other.

Lots of weird stuff happens when it gets chilly in Florida. Things like coconuts shrink and fall off. In fact, the whole state contracts a bit, which widens the beaches and puts off for a while any discussion of sea level rise.

It’s a sad sight to see pelicans warmin’ their beaks over electric heaters. Seagulls wearin’ earmuffs and mukluks look silly and are best viewed only when one has the proper state permits. The gators slow down, too. They don’t eat near as many poodles when it’s cold as they when it’s warm.

The only good thing about the cold is, well, it is Florida and in a couple of days it’ll be warm again.

Steve Hart is a sailor, angler, explorer, raconteur, amateur citrus-grower and semi-professional theologian who masqueraded as a Florida journalist and pundit for the last 25 years. A fifth-generation Floridian, Hart comes from solid cracker stock but revels in the changing face of 21st century Florida and its patchwork quilt of people, their cultures, traditions, shades and ideas. His book, “Tales from Down Yonder, Florida,” is available in local bookstores and on the Web at www.downyonderflorida.com.