It was an early morning, as we were out the door at 8 AM and on our way back to France. Today was the rescheduled charter boat day to Anguilla (moved from Christmas day due to rain).
Just like last time we were on the French side, we were waylaid by a goat herd.
Our destination was the Anse Marcel Marina on the north coast, but first we stopped at a French bakery as a reward for everyone being ready on time.
The road down to Anse Marcel was a bit sporty. That's a speed limit of 30 kph (that's 18.6 mph).
After parking and finding the actual marina, it took us a few minutes to find the correct boat. Thankfully, Steve was able to pull up a photo of it from the website to show the harbormaster, who pointed us in the right direction. He wants everyone to know that he "saved the morning" by never closing tabs on his phone.
Boarding required crossing a gap of several feet... which not everyone was a fan of.
Our French captain (Flavien?) gave us a safety briefing before easing out of the marina through this narrow channel.
Just outside the channel, we saw several large sea turtles surfacing for air. I think maybe they were leatherback turtles, but we didn't get that close of a look.
It was a beautiful day to be out on the water, if a bit rough. The captain said there was a large north swell, so it could be a "challenging day" or something like that.
Jeanne was hanging on for dear life while we were cruising.
Mercifully, the boat we'd chosen had a large roof, so there was ample shade as long as we were headed west.
He aimed directly for this catamaran, which had us a bit confused until he told us that was his wife standing on the boat (working).
It turns out that it hadn't actually been rough (yet), until we rounded the southwest tip of Anguilla and ran into the swells.
The northern side of the island is peppered with resorts and luxury villas.
I think this one was the Four Seasons Anguilla.
The captain told us this one was the oldest resort on the island, Malliouhana. Google suggests it was built in 1984.
The waters around Anguilla were dotted with luxury yachts. This fine example, "Chillaxin", is available for charter. There's no price listed, but this random article suggests is could be up to $100k per week.
This villa was noteworthy for the staggering stair count to get down to the water.
Due to the rough surf, the captain skipped the beach where he'd usually stop and instead took us to the secluded cove of Little Bay.
There were several other boats anchored in the area, providing background music and entertainment for us.
While anchored, we were all free to lounge around the boat, swim, snorkel, or hang out on the swim deck.
Steve, Rudy, and I donned masks and snorkels for a bit, but the visibility was poor due to the rough conditions, so there wasn't much to see.
In addition to the snorkel gear, the boat also provided pool noodles, a floating swim mat, and a stand-up paddleboard.
I was swimming around these overhangs/caves, watching birds fly in and out, before realizing that the cliffs looked rather unstable, like they could drop chunks of rock at any moment.
At the edge of the cove, there was a rocky island with a semi-functional rope ladder, where people (mostly kids) were climbing up and cliff-jumping.
Rudy was tempted enough to try, until he realized the rope ladder was missing a few rungs and turned into just "rope" three quarters of the way up.
I think he made a second attempt, anyway. I informed him that I'd just seen a kid fall off the ladder, that it was probably futile, and that I wouldn't try it.
This guy, however, free-climbed the rock face to the right of the ladder and then did a backflip into the ocean.
We hung around for almost two hours, basking in the sun with some beverages and enjoying the relatively calm water.
Along the cliff face, cactus cling to the wall. I thought it'd be easy to identify the type but apparently there are 30 to 40 species of melon cactus.
Around 12:30, we left Little Bay to motor around the corner for some lunch at a beach bar.
On the way out, we spotted this nerdy boat. The lighting is terrible, but it's named "Velocity" and the equation for velocity is on the side of the hull.
Also on the way out, everyone who hadn't ventured far from the boat caught a glimpse of the ladder that was the only way to the top of the cliff-jumping spot (unless you count rock-climbing).
Captain Flavien dropped us off for lunch at the Da'Vida Beach Club in Crocus Bay. Inexplicably, he had us jump out in probably ten feet of water so we all had to swim to shore.
The surf was quite rough, and the bottom was rather rocky at the dropoff, so everyone struggled to make it to the beach.
I walked around a bit and went out onto the pier to take some wide shots.
The beach bar is apparently the breakfast/lunch venue for the resort (CéBlue Anguilla Luxury Villas), but dinner is up at the Main Restaurant.
It took about an hour to get our food, so we had plenty of time to mill about and take photos.
If I had to wait an hour for a burger, this was not a bad place to do it. For an "award-winning" venue, though, it was a pretty poor showing today. Granted, it is the busiest of their busy season, but they must have been understaffed or something.
Our captain napped most of the time we were there, which inspired me to try a post-lunch snooze while the live-music singer belted out some half-decent renditions of songs from all over the genre map.
There were even more luxury yachts on the southern side of the island, hiding from the waves.
We anchored briefly in Maundays Bay to admire the rich-and-famous. The water clarity on this side of Anguilla was amazing, so I did some more snorkeling.
I didn't expect to see much so I didn't bother to bring my phone; almost immediately, I swam over a stingray, and then twice found myself in a school of fish in crystal-clear water. One school was definitely palometa; I'm not sure what the other was. Other than that, there wasn't much to see other than some sad coral and a large number of sea urchins.
Oh, and someone had sculpted an enormous sand castle on the beach, visible in the distance in the above photo, just over Steve's head. I went to the beach to admire it, then returned to the boat.
It was around 4 PM as we left Maundays Bay and cruised up the coast to Rendezvous Bay for one last swim in Anguilla.
Sabrina joined me on the beach for a beer; the sand was exceptional, like I was walking in brown sugar.
Rendezvous was absolutely lousy with mega-yachts, as Flavien explained that they were probably sheltering here from the swells before heading to St. Barths for New Year's Eve.
Just before 5 PM, we all climbed back into the boat for the return trip to Anse Marcel Marina, slipping into the shadow of a hill at the peak of golden hour.
Nobody fell in while jumping the gap back to the dock, and there were clean facilities for changing before piling back into the van for the ~30 minute ride across the entire island, down to our hill in Little Bay, just west of Philipsburg.
After stopping at yet another French bakery to grab some food (a baguette sandwich to supplement our leftovers for dinner plus some pastries for the morning) and a gas station (once we got back to the Dutch side), it was well into sunset by the time we squealed up the driveway for the last time.
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