Sunday morning we decided to arrange to hire a car for a couple of days and tour the island. This was done through customs and immigration – they are really helpful in organising everything for you. Job done – car is being delivered to car park at 9.00 am Monday morning. So we went for a stroll and had a look around Road Bay and Sandy Ground village and beach. Loads of locals out on Sunday enjoying family life together. Lovely to watch. Came across Roy’s Bayside Grill serving roast beef and Yorkshire pudding Sunday lunch – and quite a few expats seemed to be enjoying this homely treat.
Went back towards the dinghy dock and heard Jazz music coming from Johnno’s bar. Went to explore – oh what a treat – fantastic combo considering these guys don’t play together all of the time. At one stage there was an 11 year old kid playing the drums and a young female vocalist who had such an amazing voice it gave me goosebumps! Leisurely afternoon and chilled out on Morphie for the evening.
Up early Monday and collected the car – no island time here, they were even early! Anguilla drives on the left but left-hand drive vehicle so I’m now in the middle of the road as the passenger facing on-coming traffic. Not sure about that bit, particularly as Richard has left his Alain Prost tendencies back in French St Martin – today he’s James Hunt (the Shunt)….
Anguilla is a small island only 16 miles long by 3 miles wide and has a population of about 13,000 people who rely pretty much exclusively on tourism. From the commercialism of St Martin / Saint Maarten it is nice to visit a Caribbean island that has a more rustic feel to it. So we plan to make the most of it and explore every nook and cranny with the car over the next two days. We set off towards the East End of the island hoping to find a nice restaurant overlooking a bay for breakfast – we found a beach shack called Nat’s place but no breakfast. Ended up in a cafe at St James’ Medical School surrounded by students….breakfast was good though.
Anyway….had a wonderful day, including some beach time, some exploring of nice resorts which welcome non-residents, and saw some heritage sites, particularly old churches. Too much to cover so will let the pictures do the talking…
In the evening we went into Elvis’ bar and had a really interesting chat with a local guy who runs a charter catamaran. He was hiding from his English wife as she wanted him to do some food shopping and he wanted to drink beer. Anyway….we left and headed to Ripples the English pub looking for some pub grub for dinner. Ripples, it turns out, is run by his wife so we didn’t mention the fact that we had been drinking with him 10 minutes earlier!!! Anyway…he blew his cover later…when he turned up and said “I know these guys”….
Had fantastic meal of cottage pie / steak and Guinness pie with real vegetables followed by blackberry and apple crumble with custard. Oh dear – naughty but nice – and to bed with a full stomach.
Today – Tuesday – we’re planning to carry on exploring the island by car.
Bye for now
Jan