So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Good-bye...

Morning on Barnes Bay     

So...when I last left off with my Anguilla trip reporting, we had had a very full day: visiting with friends, eating, paddle-boarding, kayaking, and shopping. And that was all before dinner!  Though DH and I couldn't promise Ava another meal of her favorite lasagna, we had saved something special for our last dinner -- night of live music with Omari Banks at Veya.

Omari Banks

Carrie Bogar, the chef, was very accommodating in my advance email reservation requests, answering my questions about live music, which dates, which tables to request, etc, and we enjoyed chatting with Jerry Bogar and the rest of the staff while we enjoyed our cocktails and perused the menu. We've visited Veya enough times that I think we sampled just about everything on their menu, so DH and I revisited some old favorites while Ava had a difficult time deciding.

We started with the calamari and grilled watermelon for the table, followed by the shrimp entrée (DH), the red snapper entrée (Ava) and the Moroccan shrimp cigar appetizer (me).  Full disclosure: this appetizer does contain cilantro, and I could occasionally taste it, but the flavor is so perfectly balanced among various spices that the foul herb which is usually so offensive to me was, in fact, mild.

The calamari

Grilled watermelon w/poached shrimp

Red snapper

Shrimp w/ corn fritters

Moroccan shrimp cigars

We enjoyed all of the food and were tickled to sample the amuse-bouche: a skewer with okra and a bit of local pepper, something that is stronger than a bell pepper but much milder than any hot pepper. We were even more tickled when, after the meal, Jerry stopped by the table again with a different menu, saying,"Take a look at this and tell me what you think."  It turns out that in a very short while, Veya will be offering a casual, small-bites kind of bar on the lower level where the Veya Cafe used to be.

If I am remembering correctly, they will be keeping later hours than the restaurant and will be offering dishes similar to these sample menus of small bites that are more diminutive in portion than tapas. Meze (or mezze).  I can't wait to give it a try the next time I'm on the island!

Though we had a relatively early reservation for dinner, our meal lasted longer than usual -- something that I noticed on this trip in general.  I reckon that having three people at the table makes for a bit more conversation than DH and I usually have, just the two of us. After Ava polished off her malted chocolate mousse bars, we were surprised how late it was!

We got up early the next morning to pack, then we all piled out onto the beach for one last walk.  And one last hundred (or so) rocks to skip.  The wind and waves had really picked up, and the sand was so soft & mushy, even several feet up from the waterline, that I sank into it up to the bottoms of my capri pants. Ellen came outside to say goodbye when she saw us, and I finally remembered to get a shot of the two of us.

It was nice to have our feet in the sand one last time, and the weather gods were kind enough to provide one last rainbow before we had to load the car up and drive away.

We stopped at Geraud's for breakfast (and for a trio of take-out sandwiches for later) and arrived at the airport for our Anguilla Air Services flight.  Even if DH weren't such an airplane buff, we'd still prefer to fly between Anguilla and St Maarten for the ease of connection and for the simple joy of seeing Anguilla from the air.  We had the plane to ourselves, so The Kid was thrilled to be invited to sit up with the co-pilot.

We traditionally do our sad-face pose here, but the trip
was so spectacular that we couldn't help ourselves

We even got one last rainbow while we were in the air.

St Maarten looked greener than ever as we landed.

Lines for immigration were short, and we popped into the little side area for American Airlines ticketing, where something strange happened.  Even though our e-tickets had us all booked together in one row and our itineraries were linked, and EVEN THOUGH we had paid the extra fee for sitting at the front of economy with extra leg room, the ticketing agent for AA gave us boarding passes in three separate rows, all in the back of the plane.

We didn't notice this, however, until after we'd already gone through security upstairs.  Ugh!  DH and Ava weren't eager head out of the secure area to go back downstairs to fix it, but luckily there was a gate agent working a different AA flight who was willing to help us out.  I had to show her my printed-out itinerary with all three of us confirmed in the Economy Plus section (or whatever it's called), and she gave us a puzzled frown for about 5 minutes and asked a colleague to help before we got it all straightened out. Luckily for us, she was patient and willing to spend a little time fixing it.

Flights home were long but uneventful, and even transferring in Miami wasn't terrible this time around. All in all, this was a great trip.  Anguilla is our favorite place for a vacation, but this trip was a great reminder of how much fun it can be to introduce it to a newcomer.  This was the third time we've done so -- twice with our granddaughters and once with my mom.  Ava loved every bit of it, and seeing the island through her eyes was a real treat.

Right before she fell asleep in the car on the ride home from the airport, she said the sweetest thing. "You guys," she said. "I feel like if I kept saying 'thank you' every time I was thankful for something on this trip, I would have been hoarse after the first day."  She's a good kid, that one.

I hope I can manage to put together a book review or two before the end of the year of the books I read on vacation, but it keeps getting harder to make myself do it with the limited spare time I have this time of year.  Travel blogging is SOOOOO much easier than book blogging!  But thanks for reading and traveling along with me, nonetheless. 

Once More Unto the Beach, Dear Friends

Morning rainbow (double!) on Barnes Bay  

As usual, I woke up early on our first morning on Anguilla.  DH was still slumbering peacefully and The Kid looked dead to the world.

Therefore, my mission was to head out to Geraud's to pick up breakfast and bring it back to Caribella. Anybody who has visited Geraud's, only to discover that her favorite pastries have sold out, knows how important it is to arrive early!   I got there around 6:30 am and had my pick of pastries, but I took a moment to check out the new items that they're carrying, such as cookies and pies and brownies. 

Coconut cream pie AND rum baba in one case?
My personal idea of heaven.

Back at Caribella, DH was awake and reading on the porch, so we sipped our coffees and enjoyed the beauty of the day while waiting for Ava to join us.  The light was really gorgeous, so I made a quick video, too.  

I just love this photo.  For multiple reasons.

Before long, Ava wanted to go down to the beach.  The loves to skip rocks, and she entertained herself for hours over the course of our vacation doing just that.  Sorry, all you folks visiting Barnes Bay in the upcoming weeks.  We located and promptly skipped every possible piece of flattened rock or coral in the vicinity, even some roof tiles that must have blown loose in the last storm. We walked up and down the length of Barnes, from our swimming cove to Viceroy and back to our place, astonished over the changed landscape. We were rewarded for our efforts with some beautiful rainbows.

If you look carefully, you can see one of our skipping stones in action 

Large swathes of the beach were perfect for shelling

Even better than a pot o' gold

Eventually we went back inside to pack our beach bags. Our destination for the day: Rendezvous Bay, with a short stop first at Limin' Boutique to lighten our purses. Ken and Renée very warmly welcomed us back and were great involving Ava in the conversation, too.  I made some photos and we all made a purchase or two, and then Renée charmed and surprised us by inviting Ava to choose one of their goat milk soaps as a birthday present.  Those are some mighty fine folks at Limin', I must say.

These tea towels are new and I was sorely tempted
 to buy one. But I went with a necklace instead.

And so onward to Rendezvous, once more unto the breach beach.  We optimistically tried accessing The Place via the regular entrance, which was still flooded (about which, more anon), so we went the long way 'round and entered via the Rendezvous Road near Blowing Point. I had never seen this place before, but I bet it was a great place to stay, back in the day.  

Dave and Mo welcomed us back enthusiastically, thus demonstrating to Ava even more reasons why we love Anguilla.  We were only the second group of people to arrive, so the three of us settled in on one of the couches and read for a while until it was time for lunch.  (Well, Ava read for a while and then set up shop as the resident Stone Skipper for an hour.)

Before we went up for lunch, we had a lovely surprise: Daffy and Mr Daffy from one of the Anguilla travel forums stopped by and introduced themselves.  I was hoping that our paths would cross, and we passed the time discussing, naturally, our mutual love for Anguilla.  Since Daffy was one of the first handful of people who helped me decide to visit Anguilla in the first place, it was a true honor. They couldn't stay long, as it was their last full day on the island and had plans to be at Shoal Bay, but it was great to see them for a little while.  

The totally shabby view from our lunch table

After that, we walked up to the restaurant portion for lunch, where we shared the coconut shrimp as an appetizer and ordered the calamari, the spring rolls, and the mahi mahi sandwich for our meals.  Some Tings and a bottled water rounded everything off nicely, but I have no photos of food to share. Mostly because we hoovered all of it into our mouths almost immediately.

During lunch, I got up to make a phone call to Anguilla Watersports to rent a couple of stand-up paddleboards, as Carrie from Veya had recommended them to me. They will deliver the paddleboards anywhere on the island for you, and you can find their advertised rates on their website.  We arranged for them to meet us at The Place at 1:30, but that time came and went.  Around 2:00, a very handsome young man named Miguel walked up to us and explained that he had been down by the Anguilla Great House waiting for us since he couldn't get past the flooded salt pond. Mishap #1.

Miscommunication, it turns out.  Miguel has only been on the island for one month, and he didn't know that there was a different way to access The Place. No problem, we said, and we walked down the beach with him to get the paddleboards and our brief introduction in how to use them. Then comes Mishap #2: there's only one working paddle.  Miguel is terribly apologetic, but again, no worries on our part.  He says he can leave and return with another paddle in 20 minutes, and he's as good as his word.  What's more, to compensate for the hassle, he offers to give us an extra hour with our boards.  It's obviously great when everything goes perfectly from the start, but I've always said that a true measure of any business is how they handle a situation when things go wrong, so I was very pleased with the outcome despite the hiccups. 

Ava, triumphant

Ava is quite an athlete, so I figured she'd have no problem learning how to do this whole stand-up paddle boarding (SUP) thing.  I was less sure of how I would take to it, but I gave it the ol' college try.  To my surprise, it took Ava quite a few tries to find her balance, but in the end she was handling her board well. Me, on the other hand?  Well, I was able to get the SU part okay, but not the P.  Every time I tried to paddle from a standing position, I lost my balance and dropped to my knees.  Because do you know how hard it is to get back ON the paddleboard from the water?  Pretty darn hard.  But going from kneeling to standing and back again was easy enough. So I'm pretty much the queen of kneel-down paddleboarding (KDP.  It's a new sport. Look it up.)

We wanted to take our boards down closer to The Place, where the water was calmer and not having to paddle into the wind so much, so we swam our boards down there instead.  Once we were there, it was much easier to stay upright.  I still couldn't paddle from a standing position, but that's okay.  I converted my board to a kayak and became the reigning queen of Sit Down Paddleboarding (SDP), which is even easier than KDP.

At 4:30, it was time for us to settle up and pay the bill because The Place was hosting a private party that night.  That was fine, as Ava was exhausted from her time in the sun and I didn't mind heading home to shower off and enjoy a sunset cocktail. Ava promptly fell asleep after her shower, so we woke her up about 5 minutes before heading off to what would be her favorite dinner of the trip: Dolce Vita.

Après sunset at Caribella

Until our first trip to Dolce Vita in 2013, DH and I never would have thought we'd love eating Italian food in the Caribbean.  Don't get me wrong -- I love Italian food, but it always has seemed a tad heavy for eating in the tropics. Ava, on the other hand, practically worships pasta, so we knew from the start that we'd take her there for dinner.  Little did we know that it would be a life changing experience for her...

Because I was too tired on my *actual* birthday to do much celebrating drinking, I declared Saturday night to be my birthday instead.  I love the mojitos at Dolce Vita -- so much fresh mint, so much lime juice, so much perfection -- and began briskly consuming them.  That explains why I only have pictures of our food and not of the restaurant or of us. The bread (which they get from Le Bon Pain in Island Harbour) is excellent, as is the accompanying olive oil & balsamico. 

We started off with salads.  DH and I split the arugula & pear salad with bleu cheese, as usual, while Ava enjoyed her full size Caesar:

Ava already loves lasagna, so she needed no encouragement to order it once she heard it was a Dolce Vita specialty.  DH did the same, while I opted for the shrimp fra diavolo.  We all loved our selections, and Ava made us look good by polishing off not only her entire entrée, but finishing the last third of DH's lasagna and my pasta.  SUP (or KDP, or SDP) can make for a mighty appetite.  

The famous lasagna

My shrimp fra diavolo

The best thing, hands, down, was listening to Ava's continuous rhapsodies over her lasagna. "This must be what doing drugs feels like" and "This is my heaven," and my favorite, "If I were to die after eating this, I'd be okay with that." 

Yeah, it was a pretty excellent evening. For once, we were too stuffed for dessert, and to be honest, none of them really appealed to me anyway. (It was all very chocolate-heavy.)  Abbi stopped by to wish us a happy birthday and to extend a special welcome to Ava.  He's always been so very gracious, every time we're there.  

After dinner, we popped into the little gift shop next door, since I'd never been in there before.  Bijoux, I think the name is?  It always looks so glamorous from the outside, but neither Ava nor I was drawn to their offerings.  But still, it's pretty on the outside and I'm a sucker for colored light. 

Stay tuned for another terrible day at the beach, with no fun and no good food...