Thinking of renting a place on Amelia Island for a few weeks but I keep hearing that it smells like sulfer. Anybody have any first hand experience?

Is there a particular hotel that you've heard this about? Perhaps an older one? In Florida, if a hotel does not have city water and gets its water from a well, it will smell like sulphur. And the sulphur will leave a rusty residue on the shower, sink, sidewalk, wherever the water dries. I used to go to a hotel along a beautiful stretch of beach in Melbourne that was a prime sea-turtle nesting spot. It is unusual for a tourist destination to be so behind in its services but this 1950s home with some outer buildings had sulphur water. It is rank but will not harm you.

Aside from an isolated incident, I can't imagine why the entire Amelia Island would smell like sulphur.

I have not stayed at any hotels there, but we lived in the general area and never smelled the sulfer smell. AI is a great place to visit!

We have relatives on Amelia Island and visit several times per year. Are you perhaps thinking of smell from the paper plants there? I suppose it's possible you might be able to smell them sometimes, right in and around the town of Fernandina Beach, but I don't recall finding it overly offensive, or smelling them over on the Atlantic side of the island where the beaches are.

Hello Rutt honey,
We just got back from spending the day on Amelia Island.
We stayed mostly over in Fernandina. It was a gorgeous day! Windy and sunny and not too hot. But the wind did not completely blow away the scent from the Paper mill. It does smell like sulfur, stinky, but I think people that live there just get used to it. We, of course, noticed the minute we got out of the car, but after a while, you don't notice it.
When we were over by the Plantation, I did not notice any smell at all.
Hope this helps~

Scarlett--Is that the St. Marys mill? For some reason I thought it shut down a while ago...but guess I was wrong. Maybe I never noticed a smell since I was used to it, lol!

mms- there are two paper mills on the island. One is just south of Fernandina Beach, and the other is just north, closer to old town. Rayonier and Smurfit-Stone, I think...

Thanks...I did not know that. Its been a while since we lived near there. I just remember how beautiful it was though.

Thanks, Maybe we'll check it out a little more.

When you go over the bridge , there is a paper mill on the left at the tip of the island. When you are IN Fernandina, there is a paper mill to the right, sandwiching poor sweet little Fernandina in a smelly situation
rutt..if you are talking about the Amelia Island Plantation, you will not have a problem. It is right on the ocean, the wind always blows and the paper mills are on the other side of the island.

I have never had a problem at AI Plantation.

Ohhhhhh. That smell.

ms_go, there are two paper mills on the island as well as the one at St. Mary's? I didn't know that. Jeez. I guess that kind of kills the atmosphere at the beach, huh? Do they have to put the mills at the beach or something? Why is there this plethora at Amelia Island and St. Mary's? There's one east of Panama City and sometimes it's icky stinky too.

Take a trip to Tampa during some really high humidity and stop along the Alafia River downstream from phosphate county in Polk County. There you can take in the lovely smell of phosphate as it lingers sickly sweet in the air. We're so thankful for Gulf breezes.

Tandoori Girl -- the paper mills actually are on the west side of the island, on either side of downtown Fernandina Beach and facing the intracoastal waterway. The beaches are over on the east side, away from the mills -- from over on the beaches, you really won't even know that the mills are there. You can't see them, and with the breezes, you can't smell them either. I honestly have never been that bothered by the smell, even when hanging out downtown. I guess you just get used to it.

We spend most of our time in the Summer Beach area, which is near the Ritz. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of condos and rentals in that area, and it is several miles away from the commercial areas and the mills.

ms-go, I've spent some time near them because I had some family at St. Mary's and still some at PC. You do get used to them. And I guess we are all used to coal-burning electric plants that emit stuff, who ever smells them.

But I do believe they are not good for us. Who wants it? Not me. Frankly this will not solve itself for the next four years, no way.

The island must be over a sulfer deposit, it reminds me of Paris. Not everyone is going to smell it, and you will become "nose blind" after awhile. For sure you can taste it and smell it in the water at some of the resorts using well water. I am here now and it is insanely smelly.

Good to know that it hasn't changed in the past SIXTEEN years.