| 📅 Friday, September 4, 2026 Weekend Edition | Fernandina 🌦️ 86°/75° |
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| 🎉 | This Weekend |
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Fri
4
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Sounds on Centre
Centre Street, downtown Fernandina Beach • 6 to 8 p.m. • Free, and the first one of the fall
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Fri
4
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1955 Island Walkway • 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday matinee • $25 adults, $15 students, and it runs again next weekend
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Sat
5
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Beach north of the Main Beach lifeguard tower • 7 a.m. • Free, about half an hour, and check the daily list the morning you go because these cancel for weather without notice
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Sat
5
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Saturday markets, downtown and at Wildlight
Farmers Market on North Seventh Street and Wildlight Market Place • 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. • The Arts Market on Centre is off this week and back on the 12th
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Sat
5
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NEFL Rod Run & Truck Show
Northeast Florida Fairgrounds, 543378 U.S. 1, Callahan • 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. • Free for spectators and for show cars
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Mon
7
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Amelia Island Museum of History, 233 S. Third St. • 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. • Free admission all day for Labor Day, with games and activities for children until 2
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| 🍽️ | Try This |
Sunday and Monday are going to be wet, so here is somewhere on the mainland to sit out an hour of it. Tsaocaa has been in the strip across from Culver's on SR 200 since the end of 2025, which means most island people have driven past it a hundred times on the way to Target. You order from a touchscreen, which sounds cold and turns out to be the best part, because you can fuss with the tapioca and the sweetness until the drink is exactly what you had in mind. Dylan Bailey, who reviews restaurants for the Observer, spent months recommending it to people as “the place with the unpronounceable name that makes good tea” before he learned it is roughly tsao-cha, and that the name puts together the Chinese words for pilgrimage and tea. Order an egg waffle alongside whatever you drink.
📍 463711 State Road 200, Suite 6, Yulee • Open daily • Fruit teas, bubble milk teas, egg waffles, crepe cakes and dumplings
Local entrepreneur and author Joseph Lapin has launched The Human in the Loop, a new weekly letter on family, AI, and creativity. One essay lands every Sunday morning, and the archive goes back a decade.
Get the Sunday Letter →| 📰 | In Case You Missed It |
City commissioners voted 4 to 1 to hold the tentative operating millage at 4.8530 mills, which under Florida's Truth in Millage law counts as a 9.24 percent increase because the rolled-back rate is 4.4425. Vice Mayor Darron Ayscue was the no, arguing the city should lower the rate now and hand the money back rather than collect against an amendment that has not passed yet. The roughly $1.5 million the higher rate raises is not being spent: City Manager Sarah Campbell said it goes into contingency as restricted cash, taking that account from $500,000 to $2 million, and only the commission can release it. The reason is Nov. 3, when Amendment 3 goes to statewide voters, and Commissioner Genece Minshew put the possible cost to the city at $4 million or more a year. Commissioners also approved a tentative $228 million budget. The rate can still come down at the final hearing on Sept. 15 at 5:05 p.m. It cannot go up.
Read More → Fernandina ObserverFernandina Beach police issued a fraud alert after property owners received bills and contract approval letters dressed up to look like they came from the city. Officials did not say how many people were targeted, whether anyone paid, or how much was asked for. The line to hold onto is the city's own: it will not ask you to wire money in response to an invoice or an unexpected email. Real city email comes from an address ending in @fbfl.city or @fbfl.org, generally first initial plus last name, and if something turns up you were not expecting, call the department it claims to be from before you do anything else. The police non-emergency number is 904-277-7342. This is the second scam warning in a week, after deputies reached a Yulee-area man in the Lowe's lot on SR 200 before he could buy $14,000 in gift cards for a caller.
Read More → Fernandina ObserverThe county cuts the ribbon on the new playground at Westside Regional Park at 3:30 this afternoon, at 615 Lakeside Loop in Hilliard. The county's notice says two or more commissioners may be there, which is its roundabout way of telling you the thing is open to the public. The play area runs about 15,000 square feet, with several tower systems, a rope climbing structure standing over 30 feet, a covered swing corral and a separate section for two to five year olds, and the county built the surfacing and the equipment to be ADA compliant. The park's first phase opened in June with three full-size fields, a dog park, an amphitheater, a fishing lake and a stargazing court. Gates are open daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Read More → Nassau County Parks| 📌 | Briefly Noted |
- The last 30 days of Nassau County restaurant inspections are posted: 13 passed at the first visit, 33 did not. Each one is a single day, not a verdict.
- The Surf serves its last day Sunday, Sept. 20, which counting this one leaves three more weekends at the South Fletcher landmark, open since 1957.
- Watering days have not changed. Under Phase III it is Saturday for odd and unnumbered addresses, Sunday for even, and never between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.
- The Nassau County Planning and Zoning Board has cancelled its Sept. 15 meeting, with no replacement date announced.
- It is time to book a flu shot. Federal health authorities say they are hopeful this season's vaccine is a closer match to the circulating strains than last year's.
It is Labor Day weekend, which in a town like this one has always been about the work as much as the day off. The boats, the mill, the hotels, the schools, the kitchens, the boatyards. What was your first job in Nassau County, and what did it teach you that stuck? Hit reply and let us know. We read every response.
Dragonflies are working every ditch, pond and marsh edge on the island right now, and most people take that darting-around part to be the whole of a dragonfly's life. It is the small end of it. Where does a dragonfly spend most of its life, and for how long?
Answer: underwater, and for years. A dragonfly starts as a nymph living entirely below the surface of a stream, pond or marsh, breathing through gills and shedding its exoskeleton somewhere between five and 15 times as it grows. Some species stay down there as long as five years. The flying stage can last a week or a couple of months, and for some dragonflies as little as 10 percent of the whole life cycle happens in the air. The nymph is a serious predator while it is down there, and mosquito larvae are high on the menu.
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Fernandina Beach, FL 32034