Beaches on West End

Wednesday 27 Feb, Anguilla day 2: Road trip, exploring the beaches of West End.
Not exactly the peaceful anchorage we hoped for. We woke up several times throughout the night due to very bad rolling. The wind was gone and swell creeped in.
We wake up to a bright day, surrounded by amazing colors: turquoise sea and white beach. And surprisingly (or not) all the charter catamarans are already gone by 8am. Haha, no peace on their holiday!

After breakfast we head ashore to pick up the hire car. It’s road trip time again. We booked the car for two days, but if the island impresses us and we want to explore more, we can easily extend the rental. It’s only $35 a day. Very cheap, a stark contrast to the restaurant prices we saw last night. Let me think: one main course dish or a day out with a rental car? 🙂
Maurice, the agency owner, is a very pleasant guy and he meets us spot on to hand over the car. They don’t bother with marking the dents and scratches on the rental agreement, he says they know them all by heart. Fingers crossed we manage to keep this car intact for once.

We are anchored in Road Bay on the north coast in the middle of this long thin strip of an island, so we start our tour on the north side, going westwards first. The island seems very dry in this area. From above the cliffs we have a nice view of Road Bay where Cloudy Bay is anchored, and the beach looks even nicer from up here.
There’s not much traffic here and that makes a very nice change after St.Martin where it was so painful to drive anywhere, with overcrowded roads and crazy scooters.
A French bakery comes our way, and of course we have to stop briefly to check it out. Its very nicely done, with a large variety of pastries and breads. Proper French bakery indeed. We walk out with goat cheese quiche and multi cereals bread, which we look forward to feast on later.

Then a hardware store stop, where Glen looks for some wood preservative for the raw plywood he cut out to make shelves in the bilge. He wants to treat it for wood worms and termites, just in case it has any bugs in it. We don’t want an infestation of such creatures! This shop, although small, has everything one can think of. All practical and useful stuff. Quite surprisingly well stocked for such a small island.
Next to this store there is a real estate office and we glance in the window to check what’s on the market. And all I can say is OMG! Most of the properties that are for sale are jaw dropping. Of course, with a very appropriate price tag: 12-16 millions. Not for us, thank you.

Our first tourist stop is at the new boutique hotel Quintessence on Long Bay beach. It’s probably the nicest decorated boutique hotel we have ever seen. And the pool and hot tub are lined with the most beautiful mosaic, all set in wonderful gardens overlooking the turquoise sea. Exactly the image you might expect of a classy hotel in the Caribbean. It only has 8 rooms with rates starting at $750 per night up to $12,500 for the penthouse suite over Christmas. A little out of our league! Other than the staff we haven’t seen anybody else about, so we wonder on their occupancy rate.

Meads Bay is the next one along, with an amazing white sand beach. At one end few trees which we welcome the shade of, and we briefly enjoy looking at the kids snorkeling around the rocks which are bordering the beach here. The still turquoise water against the white sand and blue sky looks simply heavenly. This long beach has many small hotels dotted all along it, all of much lower standard than the Quintessential we just visited. So we are surprised to find their room rates still up around $500 per night for a basic room! We are glad we have Cloudy Bay to sleep on, even if she does occasionally try to throw us out of bed in the middle of the night!

Next is Barnes Bay, home to the Four Seasons Resort & Residences which has a long manicured driveway up to it. It feels magical to drive between the palm trees which are lining the driveway. We blab our way in as usual and start to explore. It’s quite a large development, very modern but also very tastefully done. There is a long corridor to the pools area, and it feels like we are walking into a postcard. Beautiful infinity pools and bars overlooking the same turquoise water and another long white sandy beach. Few guests around and it is nice to see people enjoying this perfect place. Not many people on the beach though and other than the Four Seasons, there are only a couple of very small guesthouse looking hotels.

Final beach on this coast is West End Bay. But zero development here, still as nature found it, with just a few derelict buildings likely damaged by Irma.
The western tip of the island is totally undeveloped. There is a 3Km road to the end but it turns out to be a narrow dirt track, so we make a u-turn and head to the SW coast starting at Shoal Bay. Here we find a modern development completely derelict. Again, likely Irma’s responsibility. Although you never can tell the real reason in the Caribbean. In reality we have noted that for every successful hotel/guest house there is another that is abandoned and failed, lying to ruin. Very sad really.
Just along from here there is a nice Italian beach restaurant with a more reasonably priced menu. There maybe hope for us to eat out yet.

Behind each and every one of these bay beaches there is a shallow salt pond. Remember those geography lessons where beach bars cut off the head of a bay? Classic examples here.
Moundays Bay is one of these. On the beach bar is the hotel development Cap Juluca with a very distinct Arabic theme to everything from its architecture to decoration and even the music they play. We comment that we could be in a resort on the Omani coastline, which we have fond memories of. The beach here is again very nice: long, wide, white sand and crystal turquoise water.

Next along is Cove Bay. The beach is so narrow backing onto the pond behind that there is no development here. Only a small water sports place which seems to have zero customers. Yet another business that must be struggling. And this is high season!

Our final bay for the day is Rendezvous Bay where there are several super yachts at anchor. The beach here is again spectacular.
This bay is also home to the CuisineArt Golf Resort. Again in a somewhat Arabic style. Obviously an older development than the others which we visited today, and hardly any guests. They have developed the area behind into a golf course, around the pond. But as we drive through, we see no one playing golf! Maybe it’s just too hot today.
Further along the bay we walk thought the very old and low key Anguilla Great House Beach resort. The rooms look more like a cheap roadside motel in the USA in an advanced state of dilapidation, and we are shocked that they charge $350 per night for a room. No wonder it looks empty!

Our final task for the day is to hunt for the AXA Brewery which is advertised everywhere as “Anguilla’s first craft beer”. Eventually we track down the address to a beach bar in Ferryboat Inn. The lady there tells us the beer is currently brewed in Mississippi, USA! But they are planning to build a brewery here on the island, the equipment is soon to be imported. She even gives Glen a bottle to sample this beer. But she can’t sell us any till her son gets home. So much for all the fancy adverts we see everywhere! Classic Caribbean 🙂 (sorry Luca, we didn’t get you any exotic beer today)

On the way back to Cloudy Bay we pass through the main town called The Valley. Like most Caribbean main towns it is very local and shabby to say the least. Even the main street is a patchwork of tarmac repairs.

We are back to Cloudy Bay just before sunset. A bit annoyed to find sandy foot prints all over the dinghy. How thoughtless some people are.
After a cuppa tea I tackle the challenging task of trimming Glen’s hair. I’ve done it a few times before and I think more often than not I did a better job than most hair salons we visited. Well, Glen is happy with the result and it’s good to actually have him sit still for more than 5 minutes for once!
But as the boat is rolling he is rather concerned that I might accidentally cut his ears. He has a story about the first time he ever swore at the age of 6 when his big sister, Julia (aged 13!) cut his hair and half his ear!

After we clean all the hair from the salon we have another relaxing evening watching a couple of episodes of True Detective. It’s finally starting to get entertaining now that we understand the plot and we are nearly at the end!
We go to bed rocked to sleep as usual.