Holley Navarre Fire District personnel spent part of this fall getting Public Safety Water Rescue Dive certified.
The training consisted of open water diving, scuba diving and public safety diving, which is a weeklong class in swimming pools, the East River and Santa Rosa Sound.
While the Navarre Beach Lifeguards are no longer patrolling the beach, they are still working to get ready for next year.
Navarre Beach Safety Division Chief Austin Turnbull said the work required to be ready for 2026 is complicated by the fact they don’t have anywhere to practice.
The beginning of the holiday season marks the end of lifeguard season on Navarre Beach. The official final day for the Navarre Beach Lifeguards was Oct. 26.
The 2025 season (March 8 to Oct. 26) saw a busy beach with 1,991,487 people in attendance but not too much action, according to Navarre Beach Safety Division Chief Austin Turnbull.
A soon-to-be published study on the impacts of watercraft upon sea turtles has found nearly one out of every four sea turtles stranded along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts show signs of vessel-strike injuries (VSI).
The study covered areas including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
Sea turtle nesting season in Florida runs from springtime through the end of October. In Northwest Florida, the season officially starts May 1 and ends Oct. 31.
The 2025 nesting season brought 18 nests, a high number for Navarre Beach, but mixed results overall.
Replacement of Navarre Beach Bridge in the coming years is a big priority for the Santa Rosa Board of County Commissioners. The biggest question facing the commission has been how to pay for it.
At their Oct. 20 meeting in Tiger Point, the commission may have gotten their answer.
Green sea turtles are one of the four kinds of sea turtles which nest along the sugar-white sands of Navarre Beach. Long listed as an endangered species, green sea turtles were recently reclassified as being of “least concern” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
