the

Island Brief

Amelia Island • Nassau County • First Coast

Happy Friday, Nassau County! It is September 11, twenty-five years on, and the Sheriff’s Office marks it at 9 this morning in Yulee before the weekend gets going. And it is a full one, the fullest since July: dancers in Central Park, a few hundred cyclists on the island roads Sunday morning, an opera in a bookstore, and two weekends left at The Surf. The forecast is the same both days, mornings dry and storms after 2. Saturday afternoon runs about 32 percent on the island and 37 to 46 percent inland, and Saturday evening is the wet part, 56 percent here and up to 77 percent out toward Callahan and Hilliard, so an early dinner beats a late one. Sunday is the clear one, 22 percent on the island and about 30 on the mainland, and this time the mainland agrees. Highs 87 to 88 on the island and 90 to 92 across the river.

Fernandina ⛅ 88°/76° Yulee ⛈️ 91°/75°

Callahan ⛈️ 91°/74° Hilliard ⛈️ 91°/72°

🎉	This Weekend

Fri 11

September 11 Remembrance Ceremony, 25 years on Nassau County Sheriff’s Office, 77151 Citizens Circle, Yulee • 9 a.m. • Open to the public

Fri 11

Amelia Island Dance Festival performances Amelia Community Theatre, 207 Cedar St. • Guest Artist Performance 7 p.m. tonight and Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday, the same program each time • Student and local showcases at 2 and 4 Saturday and 2 Sunday; free workshops all weekend, ticket prices on the festival site

Sat 12

Dancing in the Park Central Park, 1200 Atlantic Ave. • 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., StoryTime at 9 • Free; local dance schools perform, kids collect passport stamps at activity stations for a prize, food trucks, and bring a chair or blanket

Sat 12

Saturday markets, both of them downtown Farmers Market on North Seventh Street and the Arts Market at 506 Centre • 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. • Second Saturday, so the Arts Market is on; the Wildlight market is off until the 19th

Sat 12

Cuban dinner at American Legion Post 54 626 S. Third St. • 5 to 7 p.m. • The Auxiliary’s monthly dinner: lechon asado, rice, black beans and fried plantains for a $15 donation, open to anyone, to-go plates available

Sun 13

37th Endless Summer Watermelon Ride Atlantic Recreation Center, 2500 Atlantic Ave. • 7:30 a.m. start for the 30- to 100-mile routes, 9:30 for the 11-mile family ride • More than 600 riders registered, $120 day-of for the long routes and $40 for the family ride, lunch included; if you are driving on the island Sunday morning, give the bikes the lane

Sun 13

“Something’s Brewing,” Amelia Island Opera Story & Song, 1430 Park Ave. • 3 p.m. • $40, cash bar; Bach’s “Coffee Cantata” paired with Donizetti’s “Rita,” with St. Augustine’s First Coast Opera

🍽️

Try This

Counting this one, there are two weekends left. The Surf has sat across the road from the ocean on South Fletcher since 1957, and it serves its last day on Sunday, September 20, after telling everyone in August that competition, soft spending and rising costs had caught up with it. If there is a seat you always took there after a day on the sand, or a thing you always ordered and never once looked at the menu for, this is the weekend to do that one more time, and Sunday afternoon is the drier of the two. Go earlier than you think you need to, because half the island has had the same idea, and take the photo you never bothered to take because you assumed the place would always be there. A concept plan for the property has been filed with the city, but nothing there is approved, and nothing has been said about the motel, so this is a goodbye to the restaurant and the bar, and only that.

📍 3199 S. Fletcher Ave. • Open daily from 11 a.m. through Sunday, Sept. 20 • 904-261-5711

📰	In Case You Missed It

Cargo through the Port of Fernandina fell 85 percent from July to August, to 4,791 tons, the port’s weakest month of 2026 by a wide margin. Two ships called instead of five, the average day saw 20 trucks through the gate instead of 34, and the breakbulk cargo the port is built around, kraft linerboard, lumber, plywood and wood pulp, did not move at all; almost everything that did was containers. Through August the port stands at 184,521 tons, nearly 28,000 tons and 13 percent behind the same point in 2025. Relay Terminals president Ted McNair told the port authority Wednesday, “Obviously, a really tough one. Not going to explain it away,” and put it down to a large ship that slipped into September and a missed linerboard export after mills stopped shipping to Latin America for the month. He expects that business back on October vessels and is chasing a machinery export and European lumber for later in the year, and wood pulp is the one line running ahead of last year, up more than 25,000 tons. Monday’s issue was about how the port’s trucks arrive on Dade Street. This is about how few of them there were.

Read More → Fernandina Observer

Pat Foster-Turley, who writes the Observer’s nature column and once chaired the international otter specialist group, reports this week that a group of five river otters is being seen regularly on the south end of the Egans Creek Greenway. Bill Birdsong, who walks or rides it almost daily, finally caught them with a camera. She reads the group as a mother with nearly grown young, probably passing through rather than settled, and says otter reports on the island had all but stopped over her 25 years here, as retention ponds concentrated chemicals in the fish otters eat and the brush they shelter in was cleared for houses. Seeing them is luck; they are wary and move around at different times of day, so keep your eyes open on the greenway this weekend. If you spot one, she asks for the time, place and count by email at patandbucko@yahoo.com, and there is a statewide Otter Spotter form at the Blue World Research Institute that tracks sightings across Florida.

Read More → Fernandina Observer

The Nassau County Chamber of Commerce cuts the ribbon on its new Callahan office on Tuesday, October 6, at 3 p.m., at 450111 State Road 200, Suite 3. When the chamber relaunched itself at the end of August it promised a west-side office in September; it lands a week later than that, and this is the first time an address has been public. The chamber’s own line is that the office gives businesses and community leaders in western Nassau County closer access to its services, programs and networking, which in practice means the ribbon cuttings, council lunches and after-hours mixers that have nearly all happened on the island and in Yulee until now.

Read More → Nassau County Chamber of Commerce

📌	Briefly Noted

The Surf has two weekends left after 69 summers on South Fletcher. What is the memory you will keep from it: a first date, a birthday dinner, a cold one after a day on the sand, a room at the motel when the family came to visit? Hit reply and let us know. We read every response.

The port’s August report tracks two things that leave the island by ship and are made here: kraft linerboard and wood pulp. There are two mills on the north end of the island, and most people call both of them “the paper mill.” Which one makes which?

Answer: kraft linerboard, the brown paper that becomes corrugated boxes, comes from the Smurfit Westrock mill on North Eighth Street, a fully integrated linerboard mill with its own wood yard, pulp mill and paper machines. The high-purity cellulose, the wood pulp side, comes from RYAM’s plant on Gum Street, which makes cellulose specialties, fluff pulp and viscose that end up in filters, films for LCD screens, sponges, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Only one of them is actually a paper mill.

Know someone who'd love a weekend guide to the island? Forward this to them.

Share With a Friend ✈️

Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe free →

f ✦