Fernandina Beach, FL Outdoor Activities

The seasoned jumpers on staff at Skydive Amelia Island have all successfully completed thousands of jumps. The dedicated professionals securely strap themselves to beginning skydivers and plunge from a plane to enter a freefall of up to 120 miles per hour. These experienced skydivers hope their enthusiasm for diving is catching, as one of them says: “The falling is so exhilarating, I just wanted to keep on doing it”.

Since 1959, Putt-Putt of Fernandina Beach has hosted friendly rounds of mini golf for families, leagues, and tournaments. Co-owner Aaron Bean was one such player—he began working at the putt-putt location as a teenager and still currently holds the course’s nine-hole record of 10 strokes and most convincing celebratory swan dive into the ocean, which is located just steps away. The course has also tested the putting prowess of players in the 2010 Sonny’s Florida State Putt-Putt Championship and 2011 Southern Putting Tour Championship.

From their dock on Amelia Island, Windward Sailing's US Coast Guard captains float out into the Cumberland Sound, where dolphins, manatees, and sea turtles swim alongside the boat's speeding hull. As these tours progress, the captain turns passengers' attention to the wild horses that gallop across the banks of Cumberland Island.

Though these tours introduce customers to the thrill of sailing, it's Windward Sailing's school that transforms the sport into a lifelong passion. In classrooms and on boats, instructors teach students to cruise local waters and prepare them for American Sailing Association exams. Depending on the course, instructors might teach fledgling captains to sail in light to moderate winds or navigate using nothing but constellations and the giant map NASA inscribed on the moon.

Located just two miles from downtown St. Augustine, inside Anastasia State Park, Anastasia Watersports dispatches its nature-loving customers to the waters of a picturesque, three-mile tidal lagoon. Protected from the ocean by a line of sand dunes, the area, referred to as the Salt Run, offers gentle waves upon which patrons can hone their navigation skills in rented canoes, kayaks, and paddleboats. Alternatively, they can ride the area’s stiff sea breeze during windsurfing lessons provided by the shop’s qualified staffers. The waters brim with trout and flounder that fisherman can hook from their vessels, and birdwatchers can glimpse the marsh’s osprey, egrets, and herons as they soar skyward to nurture egg-shaped clouds.

As the sun rises over Yulee, it casts its warm glow over dense evergreen forests, open fields, and hilly terrain as far as a clay pigeon's eye can't see. This is the home of Amelia Shotgun Sports: a sprawling outdoor facility whose location and staff were featured on the television program Look at the Bird with John Woolley.

Here, visitors will find resident instructor and two-time world champion John Woolley, who, along with certified instructor David Dobson, invites visitors to test their stance, aim, and concentration across his 24-station sporting-clay course. Winding through lush forests and fields, each station lets sportsmen home in on clay targets amid realistic forest hunting conditions. The facility also challenges sportsmen with F.I.T.A.S.C. courses, skeet courses, trap courses, and a five-stand course that grants an elevated view of targets.

Captain Kevin and Cecilia McCarthy have always been fond of the sea. Born and raised in the port town of Gloucester, Massachusetts, Kevin sojourned south in 1968 before meeting his wife Cecilia, whose family had arrived on the marshy shores of Fernandina nine generations ago. After Kevin worked as a building contractor for nearly 30 years, he and Cecilia opted to embrace their shared love for being on the water, and founded Amelia River Cruises in the summer of 2000. Twelve years later, their fleet is three U.S. Coast Guard–inspected boats strong, and each cruises steadily along myriad tours of Cumberland Island, Beach Creek, and the shores of Amelia Island. History buffs rejoice in narrated jaunts down the Intracoastal Waterway that lead to the Kingsley Plantation—whose 1797 establishment makes it the oldest surviving plantation house in Florida—before traveling to the historic Fort Caroline National Memorial, one of the first permanent settlements in North America. Two-hour eco tours journey through state parks and aquatic preserves, where hands-on shrimping experiences let guests identify their captured creatures before asking them the current exchange rate of a sand dollar and releasing them back into the wild. The local and surrounding ecosystem, with diverse wildlife that appears most prominently during the summer months, boasts playful pods of dolphins, an abundance of shore birds, and sea turtles who visit to nest on nearby island shores.