| 📅 FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 2026 Weekend Edition | Fernandina Beach 🌤️ 90°/76° |
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Fernandina
🌤️ 90°/76°
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Yulee
🌤️ 91°/75°
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Callahan
☀️ 92°/74°
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Hilliard
☀️ 92°/74°
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| 🎉 | This Weekend |
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SAT
27
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Centre Street, downtown (staging at 1200 Atlantic Ave) • Saturday, 5 to 7:30 PM • Third annual community parade and faith festival tied to America's 250th; free to attend
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SAT
27
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Fernandina Beach Farmers Market
N. 7th Street, downtown • Saturday, 9 AM to 1 PM • Year-round, rain or shine
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SAT
27
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Fernandina Beach Arts Market
506 Centre Street • Saturday, 9 AM to 1 PM • Local artists and makers, 2nd and 4th Saturdays
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SUN
28
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Sunset Concert Series: Gilberto 77
Amelia River Waterfront Park, downtown riverfront • Sunday, 6 to 9 PM • Free riverfront concert with food trucks, vendors, and activities for kids
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SUN
28
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Story & Song, 1430 Park Avenue • Sunday, 3 to 5 PM • Free community conversation on the data-center debate; registration requested
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| 🍽️ | Try This |
If the heat index is flirting with triple digits, here is a plan that has never let anyone down: walk into Fantastic Fudge and let the air conditioning and the smell of warm chocolate do the rest. They have been making fudge the old-fashioned way, paddled out on a marble slab right in the window, for years, so you can watch your next slab come together while you settle on an ice cream flavor. Go after the Saturday market or before the parade, get a scoop, and take the long way back down Centre. It is the kind of simple downtown treat that makes a hot day feel a little like a vacation.
📍 218 Centre Street • Open daily, 10 AM to 10 PM
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Advertise With Us →| 📰 | In Case You Missed It |
In her latest Wildways column, naturalist Pat Foster-Turley takes readers along the drive she and her husband make several times a week, south down Heckscher Drive past the Talbot Islands to the Joe Carlucci boat ramp. It reads as equal parts nature diary and love letter: restored salt marsh full of spoonbills, herons, and bald eagles, dolphins rolling in the river, the BAE shipyard's parade of naval ships and the occasional superyacht, and a few feral cats she helps look after. There is a worry woven in, too. With the trees cleared during old wetlands work, erosion is now chewing at Heritage River Road itself. A lovely reminder that the places we love best are always changing.
Read More → Fernandina ObserverA week after Commissioner Genece Minshew faulted the Waterfront Advisory Board for a lack of measurable accomplishments, the board and city staff used Monday's meeting to reset. Deputy City Manager Glenn Akramoff put it plainly to members, “We are not the enemy,” and the group worked to redefine the board's role and build a more collaborative process for shaping waterfront projects before the big decisions get made. Board member Mike Sharpe pressed on specifics, pointing to the proposed Parking Lot C redesign near the marina and his concerns about boat ramp operations and pedestrian safety. With Brett's coming down and the marina rebuild ahead, how the city and its volunteer boards work together is about to matter a great deal.
Read More → Fernandina ObserverHeading into the holiday, the island is still running dry. The St. Johns River Water Management District remains in its Phase III water-shortage stage, declared back in May, even with a few recent downpours. Nassau County lifted its countywide burn ban in mid-May, but Fernandina Beach Fire Marshal Jason Higginbotham is urging caution with fireworks and backyard burning while conditions stay parched. The city's Hometown Fourth of July is expected back along the downtown harborfront next Saturday evening, so watch for final details locally. In the meantime, mind the watering-day rules and leave the big shows to the professionals.
Read More → Fernandina Observer| 📌 | Briefly Noted |
- The made-over Publix at Island Walk reopens Thursday, July 2 at 7 AM, with Publix Pours, a pizza oven, and burrito bowls; it is the south end's second grocery anchor back online this year.
- The RYAM bioethanol fight hits a deadline this weekend: the city and RYAM are due to file a new case-management proposal by Sunday, June 28, after two rounds of mediation failed to settle whether the proposed Gum Street plant counts as prohibited chemical manufacturing.
- Fernandina's revised e-bike and mobility rules face a third and final reading July 7; if it passes, the 25 mph roadway limit and 10 mph on trails and beaches become law.
- Sea turtle nesting season is at its summer peak on island beaches, with Amelia Island Sea Turtle Watch volunteers walking the dunes at dawn; beachfront residents are asked to keep lights low through October so hatchlings can find the water.
With the heat index flirting with triple digits this weekend, what is your go-to move to beat it on the island? An early beach walk, a shady porch and a cold drink, the AC and a good book, or a scoop downtown? Hit reply and let us know. We read every response.
You will spot plenty of roseate spoonbills wading our salt marshes this time of year, with that unmistakable pink. But spoonbill chicks hatch out white. So where does all that color come from?
Answer: Their diet. Spoonbills get their rosy color from carotenoid pigments in the crustaceans and small aquatic critters they eat, the same way flamingos turn pink.
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Fernandina Beach, FL 32034