Road Bay, Anguilla
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Sat 9 Mar 2013 17:51
About lunchtime on Thursday we arrived in Road Bay, Anguilla. The first thing to do was check in at Customs and Immigration on the dockside. This is something we are going to have to get used to doing again - phoning up in the States to inform Customs you have moved is far easier than having to go into the office and fill in numerous forms in triplicate each time you arrive at, or leave from, an island.
Friday was a beach day. When we were in Vieques, we had invested in some new deck chairs for the beach. I say invested as these chairs were $60 each! Fortunately, for that price they are not just a basic chair, they have a towel bar to hang your stuff on, a beer holder on the side and even a cooler on the back for the drinks you have yet to drink - how gimmicky can one deck chair be?
The weather was a little unsettled on Friday. We went by dinghy to Sandy Island, about 3 miles off the northern coast where we had anchored. By the time we got there, huge ominous clouds had gathered over Anguilla. Also, very surprisingly, despite there being a huge bank of dark clouds out to sea on the other side of Sandy Island, we had a fab day relaxing on the beach and topping up our tans. That evening however, the heavens opened! It went dark about 5pm and poured for practically the rest of the night.
Saturday was again unsettled, but in a different way. The boat was rolling a lot more than it had been, this was due to the huge northerly swell that was coming our way. We tried to go back to the beach in the afternoon, but by then the swell had really started and landing the dinghy through gap in the reef was going to be far too dangerous. We also abandoned our plans for dinner ashore as we could not safely launch the dinghy. As the swell was predicted to get worse, we decided to leave a day early on Sunday, for Marigot in St Martin. The waves were so bad on Sunday that although we managed to launch the dinghy to go ashore to clear out of customs, there was no way of getting it back on the davits so we had to tow it over to St Martin. Not great, the swell is already about 3.5-4m high and due to get a lot worse - a few bad days coming up with little sleep I fear!
John trying out his new deck chair on what looks like our own private atoll!
See what I mean about the clouds - we were surrounded by them most of the day!
The picture perfect bay where we anchored
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