In which Layla and Roz sample the Caribbean delights of Anguilla

By Layla

When we told our friends in the deepest of snowy Washington winter that we'd booked a holiday to the Caribbean, their faces were a mixture of 'jealous!', 'wow, you finally booked a normal holiday,' and 'gosh, what's wrong?' Our motivation was to visit our friend living in Anguilla. And so, we ditched our usual adventure for a stretch of beautiful beaches. We got to Anguilla via Sint Marten (Dutch territory), then a 5 minute drive to Saint Martin (French territory) before taking a 25 minute ferry over to Anguilla (British overseas territory). I've never visited so many countries in the space of an hour! 

But soon enough our friend had met us, we'd dumped our bags and we settled in a choice spot, sipping prosecco, on a picture-perfect, almost private little beach looking out onto the Caribbean. Nice. We couldn't resist a dip in the sea to round off the perfect start to a Caribbean holiday. That night we caught up with our friend over wine and food before admiring how rapidly our skin burned... And off to bed. 

The next day our destination was of course the beach, this time Crocus Bay. We acquired loungers, ate lunch at an attractive restaurant with live music, and hired paddleboards. We paddled into the (little) waves all the way past Pelicans and fancy yachts to a picturesque spot called Little Bay. On our return we got lots of street cred for our great paddleboarding finesse. Our friend joined us for a cocktail before returning home to de-sand and then out to Sandy Ground, a little restaurant strip on another picturesque beach where we watched the sun set over the water and negotiated a vegetarian dinner. 

Us being us, by the next day we were restless with all this crazy relaxing. We took a taxi to Island Harbour where we acquired ice creams and joined a school field trip to a miniature golf course, which was very much fun (especially when I won). Then we found the one French bakery on the island and acquired a picnic. Our mission: Windward Point, the easternmost point of Anguilla. We'd heard it was a nice hike but when we asked the minigolf people's advice on how to get to the start of the trail, they were appalled: 'if you asked for our advice, we'd say: don't go!' Luckily one of them was more adventurous and sweetly drove us to a place called Junk Hole. From there we walked down a long sandy track, cooled down with a beer at a single beachside restaurant, and then set off on our adventure. It was cool - but alas not temperature-wise. The sea looked all wild and moody. The lizards scrambled around. The strangest cacti popped up their heads. But there was nothing higher than us in any direction. The sun blazed down with zero shade. We tried. We gasped. We decided to cut out walking loop shorter than originally planned. Still, it was a while in that blazing sun before we eventually hit a road, and then a beachside cafe where we gratefully sunk into shady seats with a beer. 

Afterwards we got a cafe customer to drive us to Shoal Bay East where, after some false starts, we settled on loungers with books and drinks (spotting a pattern?) then hopped into the sea with a rented boogie board for some fun and frolics before returning home by taxi and going out with our friend that evening to the fancy schmancy hotels in the West of the Island for cocktails before an excellent meal at SandBar, and home for Bananagrams. Because we are cool. 

On our final day we walked an hour to Crocus Bay and spent the day on loungers with our books, and persuading the paddleboard people to let us rent them despite the wind... Fortunately we were able to prove our paddleboarding finesse once more after everyone else fell in the water and we suavely glided past sea turtles and flying fish. Very fun. For our last meal, we returned to SandBar. And then first thing today, we hopped on that ferry from Anguilla back to Saint Martin.