Tag Archives: beach

How to Travel to Anguilla from Saint Martin

Across the sea from Saint Martin, a thin green line is visible on the horizon. This is Anguilla, Saint Martin’s closest neighbor. Today, I spent some time on the beach near Blowing Point Terminal on Anguilla enjoying the clear blue waters of the British West Indies. Here’s a bit about Anguilla and how to travel there from Saint Martin.

anguilla selfie

About Angiulla

Anguilla is a very flat, very dry (for the tropics) island that is about the same size at Saint Martin. It’s a lot longer and narrower than Saint Martin, and it has only a fraction of its population. At 35 square miles, it only has about 15,000 residents.

IMG_1891

 

How to get there

To get to Anguilla from St. Martin, you have to take the ferry from Marigot, the capital of the French side. The first ferry leaves at 8:15 AM. It costs $5 at the gate for port tax and another $20 on the boat. I have often wondered what they do to you in you don’t have the $20. Throw you to the sharks? I’d rather not find out.

blowing point

Getting around

As soon as you step off the ferry, you’ll be bombarded by taxi drivers and rental agents. There is no public bus system on the island, so you’ll have to rent a car or take the taxi. A taxi to Shoal Bay Beach at the other end of Anguilla is about $18 per person. I believe a car rental is somewhere around $50-$100 per day. Taxi drivers really take care of their customers, by the way.

IMG_1890

What to do

To be honest, I’m not the expert on Anguilla. Here’s what I know, though. The best beach is Shoal Bay Beach. It’s a mile-long strip of white, powdery sand near a beautiful reef. There are other beaches, too, but it you have to pick one then stick with Shoal Bay. You can also charter a boat to Sandy Island or Prickly Pear Cay, a couple of Cays on the back side of Anguilla. If you decide to go to the capital, The Valley, you’ll find a few points of interest, like the museum and some local food.
IMG_1816

The cheapest trip ever

Sometimes, it’s just nice to get off Saint Martin and do something different. If you want a super cheap day in Anguilla, walk a few hundred yards from the ferry to the beach right beside the Blowing Point terminal. There’s a thin but beautiful strip of sand right there, and you can relax while the crystal-clear water laps at your feet. The view of Saint Martin is something I could look at all day. After all this time on SXM, seeing it from Anguilla is like looking at the earth from the moon.  Your total cost will be $53, and you can even get a snack– there’s a sea grape tree at the edge of the beach. The fruit is  ripe at the end of wet season. If your SXM visa is expiring and you need to get a new stamp, this is the way to go.

sea grapes

As much as I enjoy Anguilla, I’m always happy to go back to my home sweet home. Looking at Saint Martin from afar reminds me how beautiful the island is and how much I love it. From Anguilla, all you can see of Saint Martin is how “the chains of mountains green variously in sunlight sheen.”  It’s an alluring sight that calls me home. O! I love thy paradise, nature’s beauty very nice.

Pin Me!
Pin Me!

A Red Dive Platform in the Ocean

Some days, you just need to forget life and find something weird to do.

Like this diving platform floating in the ocean. You need something like that.

Red Floating Diving Platform

After block week, which is the week leading up to Ben’s big quarter-term med school tests, we sure needed a red floating dock to jump off. Ben and Matt wanted to surf after their tests, but I had hurt my shoulder. So Stacey and I decided to wander around Galion Bay Beach, and this was what we found.

jumping in the ocean

It might seem silly, but this thing was the best medicine for a couple of tired, stressed-out med school spouses. Sometimes, you need to let loose and act like a kid!

How’s your week going? If you’re feeling stressed, maybe it’s time to tap into your inner child and do something weird.

Pin Me!
Pin Me!

Holi on the Beach

It’s like a color run with food instead of running!

  
  Photo source: Vikasacharya

Holi is an ancient Hindu festival that celebrates the advent of spring. It occurs each year around the spring equinox.

The legend behind Holi is the story of a prince who is rescued by Lord Krishna from his arrogant and evil father. The king’s wicked sister tries to burn the prince, but she ends up being consumed instead. As the story goes, people put the ashes from the fire on their heads. 

Today, Holi is celebrated with a party in which participants throw colored powder on each other, eat special food, and drink. Hindus as well as non-Hindus participate in Asia and around the world.

  
Celebrating Holi Sint Maartin-style means a party of on the beach, of course! The South Asian Medical Student Association at AUC hosted Holi at Mullet Bay. After the colored powder ran out, everyone played a game of beach volleyball. According to some of the participants, the colors did not wash off in the ocean. I’m looking forward to seeing whether shampoo takes it out or if some of the med school students will have tie-dyed heads for a while.

The Haunting of La Belle Creole

They have forgotten us. We have faded from memory, like our flesh faded from our bones centuries ago. Yet we are here, invisible yet seeing, inaudible yet hearing, intangible yet sensing. Our spirits laugh with the lapping waves. We cry with the soaring birds. We moan with the wind. And we rage with the storms.

IMG_0885.JPG

 

There was a time when warm blood flowed through our bodies and warm flesh wrapped our bones. We walked on the shore then, cooling our feet in the ancient and everlasting waters. We ran under the tropical sun from shore to shore. Our children dove from the cliffs—how different they looked then!—into the clear waters of the reef. We tasted the sweet meat of the crab and danced in the firelight to the rhythm of the tide.

arch

Then they came—the strange men with strange words and strange clothing. They were harsh and resolute, and we hated them. They brought with them their vicious dogs, their explosives, and their lust. We grew weak, and our children died with raging heat in their bodies. Our women and men died with boils and scars. We wailed as our loved ones died, and we buried them with broken hearts near the sacred islet. I died, and I lay in the chill earth, away from the warm sunlight.

IMG_0876.JPG

They left, and came again, this time with their cannons and ships and slaves. They had already forgotten us, and they walked on our graves. I heard their footsteps on the ground above. They dragged their cannons over our graves and shattered our silence with their wars. They annihilated our peace with the crack of whips on human flesh.

building

They left, and others took their place. Generations lived and died. We slept in peace for a hundred years, with only the occasional wanderer to stir us.

IMG_0873.JPG

They came. Their machines roared, rattling our bones. They dug over our resting places, and built great structures over our graves. I felt the pressure of a great tower over my body. We groaned under the weight. Many people came from the whole world over, and trod on our sacred tombs. We moaned, but our cries were lost in the wind. Our bloodless beings saw the blush of the new bride. Our bleached bones saw the sun-kissed skin of the happy travelers. We remembered what we had been, and what we had lost. And we remembered that we were forgotten.

IMG_0886

Our moans whirled as wind around the whitewashed walls that had become a monument to our destruction. Our screams filled the air, and our souls ripped from our broken bones. We broke through the sandy earth, through the cracking concrete to the surface. We felt again the humidity of the air. We knew again the roar of the sea. Our tears of rage and loss poured from the heavens, and the rush of our agony ripped through the trees. We stirred the elements and raged from sea to sea, screaming our anger through the darkening sky. We saw them pour from buildings and take flight from our island home. We saw them take cover in every nook and cranny. We saw that they were afraid, and we took our vengeance.

glass

We tore through the quaint buildings, tearing with invisible claws at the rich furnishings of each room. The sound of shattering glass was lost in the volume of our screams. We threw the books, the paintings, the decorations out of the windows and doors. We destroyed their world, just as they had destroyed ours.

IMG_0856.JPG

We satiated our lust for vengeance, and we regarded the havoc we had wreaked. Shredded curtains floated in the gentle breeze. Glass and splinters carpeted the earth. Not a living soul was to be seen.

IMG_0875.JPG

Only dead ones.

glass2

We could not return to our graves. We could not penetrate the earth again. So we haunted the empty rooms, weeping in silence. We could not return the decayed flesh to our bodies or our island home to our children. We could only swear to defend the site of our sacred graves to the end of time.

 

These eerie photos are were taken in the ruins of La Belle Creole, a resort that was deserted after it was heavily damaged when Saint Martin was struck by Hurricane Luis in 1995. Local superstition states that the resort was built over an ancient Arawak grave site, which is why no modern building projects have been successful on the peninsula. Of course, I don’t believe in haunting spirits or jinxes, but I found the legend interesting and the ruins creepy enough to warrant a paranormal telling of La Belle Creole’s story. 

The Pooch and the Beach

Kito’s favorite days are when we take her to the beach. Generally, she’ll nip at everyone’s toes until she gets too tired to romp around, and then she’ll settle down and dig herself a shady little hole. IMG_5448

Sometimes, we play with other dogs at the beach. She loves that. Her best bud is Sasha, the gentle German shepherd.

IMG_5342

Last week, she watched Ben surf for a while from the cliffs above. I captured the many sides of her little personality.

IMG_0331IMG_0420IMG_0332IMG_0418IMG_0359

Where do you like to take your dog?

Buccaneers!

 

IMG_0745

In Sint Maarten, there a lot of airy little restaurants on the water. Today’s destination for the American University of the Caribbean spouse’s crew was Buccaneer Beach Bar. Despite its name, this is actually a great place to take kids. It’s right on the beach, and the water is shallow. It’s also a calm area, even on days when other areas of the island have big waves.

IMG_0590
They also have a delicious assortment of non-alcoholic drinks in addition to their bar menu, and classic beachy food.

IMG_0700.JPG

If you make it to SXM, make sure you visit one of our on-the-beach restaurants! Who doesn’t want to lounge on a beach chair with a plate of fries and a glass of something cool and sweet?

 

 

IMG_0696.JPG
We saw this tiny stingray lazily drift around the bay