August 2025
As I floated in a pool at a resort in Islamorada last month I couldn’t help but notice all of the people much older than myself scrolling on their phones and iPads. Today we even see people in their 70’s using an app to book oil changes and haircuts.
My office runs out of the printed edition of Nautical Mile monthly, people go looking for it and readership is strong, but the world is on their screens.
I hesitated “going digital” in the past because there was little benefit for advertisers, the digital magazine business is all about selling fabricated numbers. But software and technology has drastically changed, and though the printed edition is in demand, I’m introducing this digital entity.
My name is Jim Griffiths and I’ve published the Nautical Mile since 2003. I live in a town on SW Florida’s coast called “Bokeelia” which is the northern tip of Pine Island with my wife, two Dobermans and Cosmo, an Eclectic Parrot.
Years ago I had a businesses waxing boats where clients often asked for referrals to local marine businesses. I made a list of who I knew and kept copies in my truck for customers.
One day a guy who made plastic water tanks asked if he could pay me to put his name on the list I’ve been passing around. Nautical Mile Magazine was born, and within a few months I couldn’t keep stands full.
Fast-forward 20+ years where people still go looking for their Nautical Mile in bait shops and restaurants on the first of the month. But as the rest of the world turns to digital screens, it’s time for us to do the same.
People often complain about how hard it is to read a digital magazine on a portable device. We did something for the readership- each page with an article is a clickable link which takes you to a webpage where the text is waiting for you in a portable format. Look at the “CLICK” links in the top right corners of the pages.
What has always separated Nautical Mile from others is that most magazines focus 95% on selling advertising and 5% on the value of its content. I don’t like doing things a particular way just because that’s how others do it.
There’s always a better way, so I reversed the numbers, and people loved it.
Next month Nautical Mile celebrates 23 years. As contributing writers have each developed their own following, the most popular item of information we’ve published is a map to restaurants with boat docks.
To build on the popularity of this, last month I mapped every restaurant in Florida who offers boat dockage and I put them all on a downloadable “Google-Map.”
Within a couple days that map had almost 600 dots representing water-access restaurants around the state, and with minimal publicizing on social media the map had over 10,000 views statewide the first week.
Then I built ten Facebook groups which are regions of Florida anyone can join. So if you’re a boater in Florida, there’s a Facebook group in each region of the state where members can share information, photos and experiences at waterfront restaurants who offer dockage.
To my surprise, the Keys have few restaurants that offer public dockage for boaters, so that group will likely run in its own circles and include any restaurant on the water. (I think most waterfront restaurant goers in the Keys are in a rental car as opposed to a boat.)
It’s all free public access, and I even mapped restaurants in rivers and on lakes in the middle of the state. The website where the Facebook groups are listed is:
On that site you can also access and download the Google-Map with all 600+ restaurants on it.
I’m not planning on building navigational phone app, they’re nearly impossible to maintain. What I’m building is a one-stop way to find Florida restaurants who offer dockage and an audience with common interests who can share and engage with each other. As the audience grows, the readership of Nautical Mile grows.
I wrote a philosophy book a while back called “Don’t Tell Me I Can’t Do It” plus a couple of kids books about a dog I rescued. I occasionally put together a column of my own for the magazine, but most of our monthly content comes from contributing writers with great flavor from around the nation with a touch of in-house featured articles about Florida’s history, boating & fishing, wildlife, and a few of Florida’s hidden coastal gems.
Margaritaville was never a place. It actually started in Texas long before it was presumed to be about Key West. As years passed, it turned from a song to a tropical fantasy people could mentally drift away to when they needed a break from life, which is where it remains today.
Few have Buffett’s gift, but while people around the world dream about the tropics, Nautical Mile delivers a monthly taste of what Buffett wanted people to have in 2-minute online magazine articles.
Nautical Mile has been on auto-pilot for a while, and it’s easy to take a break, but it’s also not healthy to be without a project to occupy your mind. So I have a new goal- 250,000 subscribers to Nautical Mile’s online magazine all over the world. If Elon subscribes, I’ll have it on Mars too.
It’s all free to the public, business advertising is inexpensive, and you can sign up for our newsletter where a link to the latest edition shows up in your inbox monthly for free.
Stay hydrated!
Jim Griffiths
Publisher, Nautical Mile
