Palm Coast, Florida

Today's objective was to go 25 or so miles down the Matanzas river -- unfortunately, we would be fighting the ebb current we had ridden into St. Augustine, so 25 miles would be about all we could reasonably do . There aren't a lot of anchorages in this part of the Intercoastal, so we picked a marina that sounded nice as our destination (the Hammock Beach Resort Marina).

In Spanish, Matanzas means "slaughter"-- the  river's name commemorates the massacre of a few hundred shipwrecked French Huguenots by the founder of St. Augustine, Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Being protestant, and unwilling to convert to Catholicism, they were put to the sword by Aviles when their ship grounded during a storm just south of the city -- medieval mindset, much like ISIS is today.

The trip was frustratingly slow because of the bucking current and we had to pick our way through some very thin water at the Matanzas inlet.

Scenes along the way:

Reflections, just can't resist snapping them

The fish on the roof just screams "Bed and Breakfast", doesn't it :-)

The architect clearly had issues with right  angles !

The frustrations of the trip were quickly forgotten once we arrived at the marina in early afternoon -- as it turned out, it was part of a huge resort complex two miles away and our slip fees, which were very reasonable, included full access to the resorts facilities, including 7 pools, (a beach pool, a lazy river pool and a water-slide pool among them), two miles of ocean beaches, golf courses (not that we were interested in them), multiple bars and restaurants and a free shuttle service at our beck and call to get around -- we had stumbled into marina paradise :-)

Our chosen marina was nice enough, but ......

..... the resort that came with it was unbelievable !! (Picture filched from resort's website)

It was overdue, so we spent a little while cleaning up the boat (a clean ship is a happy ship), then put on our bathing suits, called the shuttle and went off to play at the main resort. Soon thereafter, we were lazily lying in inner tubes, winding our way around the lazy river -- this was the life! Sadly, we had no sooner settled into some beach chairs to order a sundowner, when our outdoor activities were abruptly terminated by a stealth Florida Thunderstorm -- a huge black cloud crept over the property and abruptly thunder, lightening and inches of rain were upon us. Not to be outwitted by the weather, we had brought shower gear and clothing changes with us -- we simply shifted our play strategy to a nice dinner at one of the resorts nicer restaurants.

Poolside just before the Thunderstorm broke

The dark cloud gathers over the resort -- torrential rain started moments later

A shower and short shuttle ride later (to avoid getting drenched), we were sitting at a table overlooking the Atlantic Ocean (low building to the left in the resort picture above), enjoying the fireworks outside as well as the cuisine inside -- all in all, a very nice day.