The Beaches of Anguilla – A Photo Essay

The Beaches of Anguilla – A Photo Essay

Maunday's Bay

Anguilla has without doubt some of the finest beaches in the Caribbean, a region that is already known for its sun, sea and sand. And it has plenty of them - more than 30 on a coastline of about 35 miles, with a few on offshore islands too. They vary in character – there are perfect curves and secluded coves, active beaches and limitless strands for walking - but the one thing they all share is superb, soft white sand and stunning clear, blue water.

In the shade

The sand in Anguilla is so strikingly white because the island is made of coral limestone. Over the aeons, reefs have grown up with the rising and falling of the sea. Now their stone skeletons are marooned above the waterline, forming Anguilla’s rocky base. With erosion the rock creates spectacular white sand which then mounds the island’s shorelines, gathering in the coves and bays. Few of the beaches in Anguilla have palm trees, so you will need to find a sunshade.

The sand

In places the sand on Anguilla’s beaches is so deep that walking can be an aerobic workout. Beaches shift and change shape, their sand moving back and forth on the currents. In some places waves furl sideways as they break, creating distinctive scallop-shaped patterns in the sand. And in the moment before they break, you can sometimes see shoals of tiny fry racing in the face of the wave. At night the sand sometimes sparkles magically - when agitated, either by the waves or by a walker’s feet, bio-luminescent protozoa emit tiny pinpricks of light.

Picture perfect

In the full glare of the tropical sun, Anguilla’s beaches can seem almost unreal, like paintings. The sunlight glances off the chop or spangles in the limpid water. Clouds ride sail-like in the sky. The Caribbean sun reflects on the sand on the sea floor, refracting in the exceptionally clear water to create mind-boggling shades of blue, worthy of a surrealist’s palette. Add the fluorescent colours of a sailing boat or a windsurfer and you have a painting with even reaching for your brush and easel.

Little Bay

Anguilla is not mountainous and so most of its beaches are set in broad and open bays. A few, however, sit in coves secluded by cliffs, where you can see the island’s ancient reef ‘skeleton’. You can be delivered by boat for the day with a picnic and be completely alone. The protected waters of Little Bay above are ideal for snorkelling and the sand perfect for sunbathing.

Boat-building

The Anguillians have always been independent-minded – with so little on their barren island to sustain them, they have always sailed to trade and to find work. There is a long tradition of boat-building on the island, boats for transport and for pleasure, which continues to this day. Anguillian boats travel around the Caribbean. Others find their resting place at home.

Sandy Ground

Even Anguilla’s main port, the only ‘industrial’ part of the island, is on a superb strip of sand – one that most Caribbean islands would be prepared to sup with the devil for. Sandy Ground (the name says it all) is a protected bay on the north side of the island where boats sit at anchor. It is also one of the island’s liveliest beaches, backed by bars and restaurants. Eventually the port is due to moved to the other side of the island.

Sailing in Anguilla

The most popular sport in Anguilla is sailing. It is fiercely contested, at the regular regattas, in which regular crews in specially built boats compete against one another and invited yachts from other islands. Local boats are spruced up for race day, making it a great spectacle to watch. Every festivity in the island has its sailing races, some ‘around the island’, others to an offshore cay. Here, local sailing boats are prepared in Sandy Ground, ready for a race.

Sandy Island

Sailing is relaxation too. One of the most popular days out for visitors to Anguilla is a day trip on a yacht to one of the offshore islands, where are impromptu beach bars that serve lunch and drinks. Visitors spend the day swimming and snorkelling. The most popular islands to visit are Sandy Island (above) and Prickly Pear Cay off the north coast and ‘Gorgeous’ Scilly Cay, in the bay at Anguilla’s second ‘town’ Island Harbour.

Sunset

If a tropical beach is the archetypal 21st Century idyll, then a Caribbean sunset is surely not far behind. Several of Anguilla’s beaches face to the West and at the right time of the year the sun will set over the sea. On a completely cloudless evening you might even see the Green Flash – a stripe of green across the surface of the sea at the very moment that the last of the sun disappears below the sea horizon.


All the images in this Photo Essay of the Beaches of Anguilla are courtesy of William Boyd and the Anguilla Tourist Board.