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Date: 03 Jan 2012 22:55:00
Title: A day at the beach - Shoal Bay
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First things first, as always when arriving on a new island you have to clear in.  As we were only staying for 2 nights we asked if we could clear in and out at the same time as suggested in the book and the answer was yes but you still have to go back to the office within 24 hours of your intended departure to collect the forms - not much help then!  As the main customs office is closed tomorrow we have to go to the other dock further along the beach at the ferry terminal, a bit of a pain but should be straight forward enough.  All forms completed, and we were free to go and enjoy the island.  We had popped into the local beach bar for a coke, (January detox!), the night before, and were told by the bar man that his mate would organise our car hire.  A phone call later and the car was ordered for a 9-9.30 drop off at the bar the next morning.  By 10am still no car - John had also made the fatal mistake of not asking which company or getting any details at all so we were stuck!!  Out came the map and we started ringing round hire firms. After a couple of calls we decided that probably the best bet was to go to the office and sort it out in person, so we got a taxi to the nearest and within half an hour were on the way.  Their credit card machine was broken so we scrapped together the cash, good news is that if there is any damage they wont be able to charge us!!
All the maps over here rely massively on adverts for publication as do all tourist maps, but if you advertise, then the street that you are on becomes a main road, whether it is a track or a tarmac road, and all other roads nearby are missed out, which makes navigating tricky - that is just one of my excuses, the other is that at the grand old age of 35, I still have absolutely no concept of left and right, John fortunately is very tolerant, most of the time.
The plan was to head to what is described as Anguilla's most picture perfect beach on the north east of the island and spend the day there and come back via the northern tip of the island.  On the way we passed through the area known as The Valley which is where most of the shops and businesses are.  There is no central town area on the island, all the shops are in small malls spread around this area so you just stop as and when. 
The beach was beautiful, without the hundreds of cruise ship passengers that we saw in Marigot on Boxing Day.  Anguilla, being one of the smallest islands in the Leewards, has no big cruise dock which means only smaller boats can come in.
There does seem to be a bit of confusion on the island as to which currency is in use.  Officially as Anguilla was British owned many moons ago, it is the Eastern Caribbean Dollar, but as most of the tourists are American, all restaurants, boutiques etc price in US dollars.  Whilst most islands will accept either, their main currency is usually EC Dollars but not here, you have to check the currency on everything you buy.  Also, whereas there is a set exchange rate on all the other islands between US and EC dollars, it fluctuates here.  It caused a stir tonight when I tried to pay for dinner in EC dollars, and they would only give me change in US, they had no EC dollars in the till at all!  DInner was at a great beach side restaurant, with amazingly enough no sand flies - we are liking this island very much already, shame we have to leave on Thursday!


 John waiting patiently for the car hire and planning our route

  Heading off for a cooling dip in the sea

  Is this not the most gorgeous beach??
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