Showers and storms every day through the weekend, mostly from early afternoon on, with mornings the drier windows. Saturday is the better of the two weekend days on both sides of the river (83 on the island, 84 to 86 inland); Sunday afternoon and Monday are the soakers, and the forecasters are talking about several inches of rain and localized flooding before it is over. Tuesday the wind turns northeast and a nor’easter sets up for midweek: gusts near 40 on the coast, dangerous surf, rip currents and tidal flooding around the high tides. No advisories are posted yet; the rip current risk at the beaches is moderate this weekend, so look rather than swim. The tropics are quiet on our side.

Coastal Tea Cafe cut its ribbon Thursday morning at 27 S. Fifth St., a few steps off Centre, and the timing could not be better: tomorrow is the first Saturday the Fernandina Beach library is closed under the county’s new hours, and the cafe has a used-book nook stocked in partnership with that same library. Tonya Blanchford bought the building in April and has opened it as the kind of place you sit in when the afternoon storm arrives on schedule: four house-made iced teas, 25 hot teas, breakfast, lunch and baked goods, open 7 to 5 every day but Tuesday. One more thing we liked in this week’s inspection report: the state visited on Sept. 17, two weeks before opening day, and found zero violations. We have not had our cup yet, so if you get there first, hit reply and tell us what to order.

📍 27 S. Fifth St., downtown Fernandina • Wednesday through Monday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed Tuesdays • Hours and menu per the chamber’s opening listing

The Observer’s monthly roundup of state inspections landed Thursday, and the headline split for the 30 days behind it is 17 restaurants passing at the first visit against 24 that needed a follow-up. Three passed with zero violations: Philly Boyz on South Eighth Street on Sept. 25, Whit’s Frozen Custard on Sept. 22, and Coastal Tea Cafe on Sept. 17, before it had served a customer. At the other end, Añejo Cocina Mexicana and Hana Sushi, both in the Homegrown Way plaza in Yulee, logged 19 violations each and Down Under on Wades Place 18, and the state recommended emergency orders at Down Under on Sept. 28 and at Domino’s on South 14th and Arte Pizza on North Third on Sept. 9. The caveat the state itself puts on all of this: each report is a snapshot of one day, a place can have more or fewer problems the next, so read the list as a reason to look up the report, not as a verdict on a kitchen.

Nassau County will resurface Buccaneer Trail from the South Fletcher roundabout at Harris Teeter to Marian Drive on the nights of Wednesday, Oct. 7, and Thursday, Oct. 8, working from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. so the road stays open in the daytime; expect message boards and slow going if you are out late on the south end. It is part of the county’s level-and-overlay program for the fiscal year that just ended. On the other end of the island, Monday is the day FDOT said its contractor starts moving equipment onto Atlantic Avenue for the $5 million rebuild from Centre Street to South Fletcher, with the heavy work beginning about a week later and running to late 2027. The rules we printed Monday still hold: daytime work, no lane closures between 6:30 and 8:30 a.m. on weekdays, driveways blocked for under an hour at a time, and the on-street parking along the bike-lane stretches does not come back.

For the rainy-afternoon read, Pat Foster-Turley’s column this morning comes from the other side of the Placencia Lagoon, where the Crocodile Research Coalition keeps the Morelet’s and American crocodiles that can never go back to the wild. Twice a week the staff target-train them so a vet can get close: the animals learn “target,” “stop” and “water,” follow a pole out of the lagoon and onto land, and get paid in chicken parts. The star is Gilly, a 51-year-old who spent decades with wildlife film producers and is the second-largest Morelet’s crocodile in captivity anywhere; he is far too used to people to be released, and he has taken to the lessons. Pat, who is married to a marine mammal trainer and has watched a lot of animals learn things, says she never expected to see the method work on a crocodile. There is video.

This is the first washout weekend since spring. Where do you go when a Saturday here rains out: the restaurant, the shop, the porch, the drive across the river? We are building a rainy-day list, and we would rather have your spots than ours. Hit reply and let us know. We read every response.

Dr. Waas, the physician whose big house still stands at Seventh and Date streets, was mayor of Fernandina from 1899 to 1908 and owned one of the first two automobiles on the island. With only two cars on all of Amelia Island, what did he manage to do with his?

Answer: He crashed it into the other one. The Observer’s “Architectural Treasures” column on the Waas House records that he got into an accident with the owner of the island’s only other car, Flossie Borden. He also ran the Waas Pharmacy, practiced medicine out of the house, and played Santa Claus at Christmas, collecting guests by horse-drawn wagon. The house stayed in the family for nearly a century, 1899 to 1996.

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