A Quick Sunday Funday, Part II

It had rained overnight again, but when we got up, it seemed like most of the clouds were heading west.  We had many plans ahead of us for the day, including seeing Andrea at Ocean Echo for lunch and meeting up with some new-to-Anguilla travelers later in the afternoon at The Place. So we stayed home at Caribella for breakfast on the balcony, and DH indulged in a mid-morning nap while I had fun observing the yard fowl come and go.

He assured me that this photo was okay to post.

Around 11:30 we headed over to Ocean Echo on Meads Bay.  We love going there for lunch, not least because the location is so nice, but part of the large draw is that Andrea works the lunch shift most days. It's a relatively new space on Meads Bay, locally owned, with tables just inches away from the sand, and they also provide complimentary use of their chairs & umbrellas to their luncheon guests.  The menu is varied and reasonably priced, too.

Click the pano for full size

Pretty bar with a view

These club chairs are a comfortable place to gather for drinks

We were the first guests to arrive for lunch, but instead of taking a table at the front row closest to the sand, we asked Andrea what the breeziest location would be.  She chuckled and said that our train of thought had officially shifted from being a tourist to a local, while showing us to a table set a bit farther back.

Eventually I settled on the fish burger while DH selected a hot dog platter and we both enjoyed the freshly brewed iced tea (priced per glass, by the way, and not as a bottomless glass as in most places in the US).  Andrea sat & chatted with us as time permitted, but before long, more guests came by. We lingered quite a while over our books, though, and outstayed the other tables, and by 2:30 the other guests cleared out.   Andrea regaled us with stories from her childhood on Anguilla, including the days her entire primary school class would come spend the day on Meads and they would pick a fruit--the name completely eludes me, but Andrea spied one right next door that was almost ripe and picked it for us.

Can anybody tell me the name of this fruit?

DH and Andrea

DH and I both sampled it, but it wasn't quite ripe, so the flesh of the fruit made the insides of our mouths dry up and pucker. But apparently they were a great delicacy for the children, whatever they are.  Andrea asked us what our dinner plans were for that night, and DH said that he was planning to stay home and cook, but did she happen to know where we might buy some fresh basil on the island? Andrea grows all kinds of things in her garden and she promised that she'd be happy to run some over to us when she got to work that night (Mango's, right next door to us).

It was starting to get overcast again when we left Ocean Echo

Looking forward to seeing her again later, we headed out to The Place to meet up with Lori and Frank, a couple who have been traveling all over the Caribbean, but who had never visited Anguilla before.  We had a really nice time getting to know them and talking about all of the placed in common that we've visited.  We both loved Nevis & Grenada, we'd each done a special stay at a private island resort (Guana for us, Palm Island for them) and agreed that it was nice, but not our preferred way of vacationing.

Dave and Ambrose were working that day, but it was so busy that they didn't have much time to chat.  But the four of us did get the chance to meet Ambrose's partner, Susan, and together they own and run a B&B called 100% Local, which they invited us to visit the next day.  At closing time, we said goodbye to Lori & Frank, Ambrose & Susan, and David and told the folks at The Place how much we'd miss them until our next visit.

Back home, we took our usual walk up the beach to the swimming cove for a dip, and when we got back to our unit, Ellice Brooks was there checking over the property.  He's the owner & manager, and we invited him up to our balcony for a drink and a visit.  Before long, it was time for DH to start making dinner preps, and Andrea brought us a big bunch of basil, which has much smaller leaves than what we're accustomed to seeing at home, but has a stronger flavor.

Well, as usual, DH made a little too much food: sautéed chicken, sugar snap peas, potatoes, bread from Geraud's, and a mozzarella, tomato & basil salad. We barely made a dent in it, so we wrapped up most of the leftovers for later.

Over dinner, we discussed our plans for the next morning: we were going to go on an Anguillian Magical Mystery Tour!  Inspired partly by the Dune line of jewelry at Limin'g Boutique and largely by the display of Anguilla beach sand at Sweet Return villa where we stayed last October, we decided we wanted to collect beach sand to take home with us.

Sweet Return had filled most of the top portion
of a breakfront with jars of sand from various beaches