Downtown Fernandina Beach marina
The working marina at the foot of Centre Street on the Amelia River, with the shrimp fleet, boat tours and charters, a public boardwalk and the island's best sunset view. The reason downtown Fernandina Beach faces the water it does.
The marina is where downtown Fernandina Beach makes sense. Walk to the bottom of Centre Street, and the Victorian storefronts stop and a working waterfront starts.
Docks, boats, and the shrimp fleet. Fernandina Beach is a working shrimping port with a claim to the origins of the modern industry, and the boats tied up here are not decorative — they go out. That is unusual in a Florida town with a tourism economy and it is the single thing that makes this waterfront feel real.
Also here: boat tour and charter operators, running river cruises, marsh and dolphin trips, and inshore and offshore fishing; a public boardwalk along the water; transient dockage for visiting boats; and the fuel and services a working marina needs.
This is the island's best free viewpoint. The marina faces west across the Amelia River to the Georgia marsh, which means the sunset happens right here — over the water, behind the shrimp boats.
Visitors reasonably assume that on a beach island the sunset is a beach event. It is not: Amelia Island faces east, so the ocean side gets sunrise and the river side gets sunset. Stand on the marina boardwalk and you get the same sky as the paid rooftop tables above you.
Getting out on the water is the best thing you can do from here. The Amelia River, the marsh creeks and Cumberland Sound look completely different from a boat, dolphins are near-guaranteed in the river, and the shoreline of Cumberland Island is startlingly close.
We are not publishing operator names, schedules or prices we have not confirmed — check what is currently running at the marina or with the operators directly.
Working shrimp boats and their rigging. Container and cargo traffic heading in and out of the port. Occasionally Navy vessels bound for Kings Bay to the north. The paper mill stacks at the island's north end, which some visitors find jarring in a resort town and which are the reason Fernandina had an economy before it had tourism.
Pelicans, cormorants, and dolphins in the river channel.
The boardwalk and the waterfront area are public and free. Free parking is in the public lots a block or two up, and every restaurant and bar in the historic district is within a short walk.
The marina has been rebuilt and repaired following storm damage in recent years, and the state of individual docks and services changes. Check with the marina if you are arriving by boat.
Everything downtown, since this is the bottom of it. Centre Street shopping, the Amelia Island Museum of History three blocks up, dinner anywhere in the district, and the rooftop bars directly above the waterfront.
A long-established waterfront restaurant built out over the docks at the Fernandina Harbor Marina, at the foot of Centre Street. Seafood and American cooking with the closest thing on the island to dining on the water rather than beside it.
Details unconfirmed
A two-storey seafood bar and grill at the foot of Centre Street with a rooftop deck over the Amelia River and the shrimp docks. Downtown Fernandina Beach's most-used sunset spot, and a reliable stop for fried shrimp, grouper and a cold beer.
Amelia Island's west side is a maze of tidal creeks and salt marsh feeding the Amelia River, with guided kayak and paddleboard trips running from downtown Fernandina Beach and the south end. Tide timing matters more than fitness here.
Details unconfirmed
Part of Amelia Island attractions — our full guide to the complete amelia island, florida visitor guide.