Ahhhhh, Anguilla! October 2013

It's no secret that my husband and I love Anguilla.  We've been vacationing there pretty regularly since we first tried it back in 2009, sometimes even being lucky enough to go twice a year.  You see, my husband teaches and every October he gets a short fall break. Since our birthdays also fall during October and November, we save our pennies and forego any birthday presents and generally are able to  squeeze in a 4- or 5-night visit to the Caribbean in October, which is also peak hurricane season. Meaning, basically, that the beaches are virtually empty of tourists. Just another perk in our book.

October also happens to be a month when many Caribbean restaurants and hotels close down for vacation and renovation, so this trip was quite different from previous ones. The place we usually stay is closed through the end of this month, so we had to scramble to find someplace else--it was actually the perfect opportunity to try a villa in a different location on the island.  While still technically in the West End, Sweet Return villa is more centrally located than any place else we've stayed and it turned out to be perfectly lovely.

Anguilla from the air

Our travel day was a long but relatively easy one, about 12 hours door-to-door from the time we left our airport hotel to the time we arrived at Sweet Return. We opted to fly Anguilla Air Services from St. Maarten to Anguilla, and for us it's completely worth the extra $25 per person each way over the private ferry boat service--and if you take into account all of the tips we disburse when using the boat, the price differential isn't even that much. We also prefer the immigration & customs process at the airport over Blowing Point AND you get the chance to see Anguilla from the air, so I think we'll always fly to Anguilla in the future.  Ronnie Bryan left us a car in the parking lot, we stopped by Albert Lake to pick up some provisions, and hit the road for Sweet Return.

The directions were fine and easy to follow: basically, when heading west, turn right off the main road right before you get to the new Cuisinart entrance.  The road was terrible, though, and each time we came or went, I mentally apologized to Ronnie for putting his car through that. Stacian met us at the villa and showed us around, explaining the ceiling fans, showing us where to find various things like beach towels & beach chairs, and lastly presenting us with a cheese & wine platter.  That was completely unexpected, especially since we'd negotiated a lower rental rate, but quite welcome.

Our hospitality platter

Once Stacian departed, we opened up all of the doors and windows (all screened) to the breezes and sat down to take it all in.  The villa is very nicely situated, facing south toward St. Martin, with constant breezes that always kept us comfortable.  In fact, we didn't even change out of our long-sleeved travel clothing.

Sweet Return

We were pretty tired, and after snacking on the grapes, cheese, and crackers, we decided that there was no real need to head somewhere for dinner.  We could simply enjoy the villa, read, and nosh as the mood strikes us.  In hindsight, I do wish we would have gone out to Flavours for dinner, as it was a restaurant we wanted to try, but which ended up being either closed or hosting a private event for the rest of our stay. C'est la vie. We were both worn out from our day of travel, and just as we were about to head inside to unpack after the last light had faded, the power went out.  It only lasted about 30 minutes, but luckily we had seen that the villa had flashlights plugged into outlets in the kitchen and our bathroom, so we used those while we unpacked our suitcases. Once the power came back on, we shut up our bedroom, turned the a/c on, and sighed with contentment as we finally got horizontal.  DH went straight to sleep while I read for a bit, but we were both in the land of nod before 9:00 pm. 'Cause that's just the kind of wild and crazy folks that we are.

Here, then, are some photos of and around the villa. It was a very nice place to stay, with comfortable, stylish, yet sensible furnishings for the environment.  It was elegant and offered a nice level of luxury without being fussy.  I felt like I could kick back with impunity. In short, it was a very liveable and gracious space. There are two bedrooms on the main level that are nearly mirror images of each other, with en suite bathrooms.  We chose the bedroom on the left as you look at the above photo.  Each bedroom has a full set of sliding doors and two windows that can be opened up to the ample breezes.  In truth we probably would have been comfortable without air conditioning, but we used it nonetheless. The king-size bed was quite comfy, and it was either a Tempurpedic mattress or one with a Tempurpedic top.  Each bedroom also has a large trunk-like piece of furniture that Stacian explained can be opened up to make a twin-size bed. The bathrooms were done in a stone tile that was both attractive and practical, and the towels were uber-fluffy. Downstairs there is a third bedroom with a private pergola and separate entrance.

This trunk unfolds into a twin bed

The patio & pergola of the lower level bedroom

Between the bedrooms is the primary indoor living space, comprising kitchen, dining area, and living area, plus a separate little sunroom off to the side.  There is a TV and entertainment center, but we never used it. The dining table is large and solid with a glass top, the sink overlooks the yard, and they even provide a kitchen "map" indicating what items are in which cupboards & drawers.  There is one sofa and there are three matching chaises longues (one pair and one single one by the tv) in the living space, too. A coordinating sofa is in the sunroom, too, as well as cabinet holding all of the bar glasses & tools.

The kitchen

The cabinet & drawer "map"

The sunroom

The bar

The two chaises longues

View of pool and St. Martin beyond from the dining table

We also appreciated the little touches, like the matching chandeliers & sconces in the living area, the glass jars filled with sand from the different beaches on the island, lined up like squat little soldiers, and the globe in the sunroom.

My DH in particular loved this chandelier

But most of all, what we appreciated were the pool and the views (well, except for all of the power lines). We spent a lot of time outside, either reading in the shade, taking the early morning sun, or kicking back in the pool.  The sliding doors in our bedroom faced full east, so we slept with the curtains open in order for the sunrise to wake us up in the morning--then we'd either head out to the chaises longues to enjoy the earliest morning rays if the cushions were dry, or thrown open the doors and crawl back on top of the bed if it had rained in the night. We didn't have a full-on sunset view, but we craned around, we could get close to one.  The plot of land behind the villa has an incomplete house on it, as does the plot of land to the one side, and the rebar from both construction sites shows up in most photos where I tried to snap the sunset.

The first sunrise we were awake for

The eastern sky at sunset

Sunset behind the neighbor's house

This shot was from the window in the sunroom

If you squint, you can just make out Saba's shadowy outline in the middle of the photo

And that just about brings us to the end of our tour. We really, really liked our space at Sweet Return, with its privacy, views, and pool.  While we missed being directly on the beach, it was pretty neat being at a relatively high point on the island and seeing so much of the island.  We could look beyond our pool to the salt ponds and Rendesvouz Bay, or over land to Cuisinart and Temenos. We enjoyed seeing the lights of the island and on St. Martin twinkling in the twilight. It was the perfect place for relaxation for five nights, but I can also see how it would be perfect for actual island living.

A tired but happy self-portrait. 

Anguilla, Pre- and Post-Trip Evaluations

Long Bay, Anguilla

Blogging about vacation once I'm back home is difficult on multiple levels: I am so busy catching up at work that I have very little time to devote to blogging and photo organization, and I'm so homesick for Anguilla that it feels like torture to be writing about my time there.  A few weeks later, once things settle down at work and in my heart, it theoretically would be easier to write about Anguilla, but by that time my reading momentum usually carries me somewhere else, and inevitably I abandon the last couple of posts that I had good intentions of writing.

This is what my desk looked like when I got back to work.
It is essentially a barricade. Just like Les Mis but with less singing.
Incidentally, that is a photo of Anguilla showing on my wall calendar.

Which brings me to this post.  I didn't write an Anguilla Wrap Up post for my 2013 vacation, and I've been too busy at work to share much news about our upcoming shorter trip to the island next month, but now that the new trip is drawing nearer every day, it seems like the perfect opportunity to indulge in my Anguillaphilia.

West End Bay, Anguilla

Highlights of June 2013: Well, this trip was amazing, so there were lots of highlights. The tasting menu at Veya was pretty spectacular (sea lice, anyone?). We tried a new restaurant, Dolce Vita, that we feel sure will become one of our favorites.  We discovered Long Bay for the first time. We spent more time on Rendezvous than on any other beach (except our "home" beach of Barnes Bay), thanks in large part to the opening of The Place. We met some really terrific people, both belongers (Andrea & Moe) and visitors (JP & Adria), and got to know folks in a way we hadn't on previous trips. We visited AARF (twice) to play with some puppies and kittens. We also were lucky enough to spend one night at the dreamy Las Esquinas, which is about as close to perfection as a place can get. We already loved Caribella, which is our home away from home on Anguilla, but we discovered on this trip that we liked a different unit better.

Barge and tugboat, seen from the road leading to Caribella

Lowlights: There aren't many.  The biggest one was the eyesore of a barge set up between Viceroy and Caribella to create a breakwater.  It's a completely asinine, not to mention megalomanic, project. The barge wasn't active every day, and we spent more of our days elsewhere on the island than on Barnes Bay, so it wasn't totally disruptive in that sense.  But it did disrupt the visual beauty of the horizon, and near the end of our trip the barge actually capsized, though how the hell a barge can capsize is beyond me. The loud techno-pop and DJ music from Viceroy was also occasionally disruptive, and if we didn't sleep with earplugs each night, we would have been seriously disgruntled. I can't imagine how loud it must be on site!

Capsized barge, seen from our balcony

As with most travelers to Anguilla, our last day is always full of bittersweetness.  Though I always miss my "animules" at home (one dog, three cats), it does feel tragic to leave Anguilla.  For the last few years we have opted to fly to St. Maarten instead of taking the ferry, and we do feel that it's worth the extra expense to us to have that extra bit of time on Anguilla, and not having to worry whether our bags have made it on board the boat is good, too.

Rendezvous Bay, seen from the air

When flying Anguilla Air Services to St. Maarten, we only need to be at the airport 30 minutes before the scheduled departure, and since we were the only two on board for this flight, I believe we even left a few minutes ahead of schedule.

Sad face, leaving Anguilla

Lines at the airport weren't too bad, but we were also fortunate enough to be flying up front on our way home.  We usually fly coach, but when booking through American Airlines we found that upgrading on the way home would only cost about $75 more per person, so we decided to live a little.

St. Maarten, seen from the air

We always stop by Geraud's to pick up a sandwich to go so that we can have one last taste of Anguilla while we're waiting in the St. Maarten airport. After we ate I was feeling a little restless--once we've crossed that line to St. Maarten, we're both eager to get home--so I poked around the gift and duty free shops and found something interesting.  I'd like to be a fly on the wall when someone orders this rum by name:

I'll have the Big Black Dick, barkeep.

The trip home was relatively uneventful, if a bit long.  The only connecting flight between Miami and Hartford leaves Miami after 9:00 pm, which means we're not usually back home and greeting our dog until around 2:00 in the morning. Oy! But of course Anguilla is worth all of that trouble and more. The most exciting part was between St. Maarten and Miami when we flew over the British Virgin Islands and I was able to get a good shot of Guana, where we honeymooned and spent our 5th anniversary:

That's Guana in almost the dead-center of the photo

One of the ways we ease back into our real lives is by recreating something we've eaten or drunk during our trip.  A few years ago I experimented with the frozen mojito from Cuisinart.  This time we made the pain au tomate from Las Esquinas. We made it a few times each week during July and August when the tomatoes were so gorgeous, and we devised a mixture that we love--we added a little garlic, basil, and crushed red pepper to the recipe given to us at Las Esquinas.

Our re-imagined pain au tomate

Remember when I mentioned that on our last full day we stopped off at Devonish Gallery and I bought a small oil painting by Antoine Chapon? I had a dickens of a time waiting for it to be shipped to me. Now that I think about it, this should go under the heading of Lowlights 2013. I purchased the painting on July 4 and paid for it to be shipped to me. On July 12, I emailed the gallery to ask for the tracking number on the painting, only to find that Mr Devonish hadn't even taken it to the post office yet. On July 27, when I tracked the package, the Anguilla postal website told me that it hadn't left the island yet. Excuse me? I know things take a long time to ship, and I did not want to pay a premium price to expedite the shipping, but that just seemed totally excessive to me.

Antoine Chapon's watercolor reproductions for sale

The painting did finally arrive in early August, however, and it arrived in perfect shape.  I kept the frame that the gallery provided, but I may upgrade it after I live with the image for a while if it seems to want it.

Here is a close-up of the painting

Here's the painting in situ in our home. 

The only cure for DIF (Dreaded Island Fever) is to plan a return trip, so that's what I spent my August doing. Our beloved Caribella is closed during the months of September and October, so I had to find a new place to try.  After many hours of research, I sent out inquiry emails to several villa owners and proposed a modestly reduced rate since (1) it's not just low season, it's LOW-low season, and (2) I'm an amateur travel writer/blogger who always reviews places I stay.  Quite a few were amenable to my rate negotiations, so then I had to spend time agonizing over which to choose.  Do we give preference to a villa's location on the island? Its view? Level of Luxury? Do we take the least expensive place and put that money towards our restaurant bills?

It's such a tough call, but we ended up choosing Sweet Return Villa, owned by a Canadian family who *usually* goes to Anguilla during the time we're going to be there, but there's a special milestone birthday celebration for them elsewhere this fall, so the villa was unexpectedly unoccupied. Its location seems ideal, and it offers some very nice amenities without being one of those over-the-top, we-don't-want-to-breathe-wrong-on-it luxury homes. It was neither the most nor the least expensive of our choices, but it offered the best value.

It turns out that our two favorite restaurants--Veya and Dolce Vita-- are scheduled to open by the time we arrive on island (alas, most tourist-oriented places close for September & October), and now we're crossing our fingers that Geraud's will be open, too.  It's our favorite place for breakfast and lunch, and they tell me on Facebook that their re-opening date for October isn't set yet. We'll just have to see.

In the meantime, I'm planning our days around Anguilla's greatest charms: its beaches.  We'll be sure to take in our usual Rendezvous and Shoal Bay East, but our villa is close enough to Long Bay that it might be fun pretending to be castaways for the day, too.  And of course we cannot forget our friends at AARF.  We may even act as couriers for a pup or kitten on the way home to New England, where various foster families await.

Such a sweet little cow on Meads Bay

You do NOT want to mess with this MoFo MoGo. I saw him charge a pedestrian.

I can't wait to see what else Anguilla has in store for us on this trip.  We're only there for five nights, which is a shame, but I'll take it anyway. And as our last night on the island is DH's birthday, we may reprise our experience with the chef's tasting menu at Veya again.

Anguillian sunset over Barnes Bay

P. S. Happy birthday to my sweet and beautiful sister, Holly, today!

Photo Tour of Euphoria Villa, Leverick Bay, Virgin Gorda, BVI

One of things I knew I wanted to do while on this trip was take lots of photos of the villa where we stayed, in the hopes that it might be helpful to other people wanting to rent there in the future. There are tons of websites out there that feature Euphoria, and they all seem to have the same professional photos. We were lucky because the villa in person looked even lovelier than the pictures we'd seen, but that's not always the case when renting. I do want to mention two other websites, though, to give the most complete portrait of Euphoria: this one, which is the owner's video tour, and the one from VRBO, which gives the full run down in list form of every amenity on offer.

The owners of Euphoria recently refurbished the kitchen area and it's difficult to image a more comfortable place to make one's home-away-from-home. The kitchen is fully stocked with the usual items & appliances, such as a coffee maker, microwave, toaster, blender, etc, but it also had a toaster oven and an air popcorn popper. We ate breakfast in the villa each morning and dined in three nights for dinner; usually when we rent villas, we either make do with what's already stocked, or we try to find the missing item on the island to purchase and leave behind for the next guests.  But in Euphoria, there was nothing missing. We had pizza cutters, wine openers, two full sets of kitchen knives, saute pans, stock pots & colanders of all sizes. We were spoiled for culinary choice, really, and previous guests had even left behind various spices. My sole criticism is that the knives could have been sharper, as my DH had difficulty finding a knife that would cleanly slice our tomatoes and other veggies.

The cupboards came stocked with plates, dishes, three sizes of bowls, and drinkware in both glass and plastic incarnations. The main table could sit six people in maximum comfort and eight people with a little less comfort, I'd guess. Cloth napkins and placemats rounded out our dining experience. Out the door in the above photo is the gas grill and the path leading down to the separate guest suite below, with its own kitchen efficiency. We didn't use that space, but we peeked into it.

The bedroom DH and I shared was very comfortable (to say it was the best sleep of my adult life would not be an exaggeration), with a king-sized Tempurpedic bed, en suite bathroom, and a small walk-in closet. The bedroom had air conditioning, which we used most nights but one night we felt so comfortable with the breeze coming in through the screen doors and jalousied windows that we went without the a/c. I imagine that if we ever had the luxury of multi-week vacations that after the first few nights of acclimating to the island's temperatures and humidity that we'd go without the a/c altogether.

These are rocking chairs. No better place to read, ever!

We had sliding glass doors looking out to the pool area and another set leading to a small deck that was my favorite place to catch the early morning light over coffee, or to read in the shade in the afternoon.

I really loved our glassed-in garden shower in the bathroom, which was done in a terra cotta with island accents and tilework. Some villas go for such a clean, modern look that it's hard to imagine that those places are comfortable, but not Euphoria. Everywhere you look, there are island details, whether it's the tilework, the furnishings, or objets d'art scattered around the villa.

The other king bedded room

My mom was in the other king bedroom that looked out over the pool and which had jalousied windows on two sides of the room and sliding doors to the pool on a third side. Though there was a/c in the room, my mom never used it, preferring to take advantage of the breezes and to better hear the sounds of the Caribbean, both night and day.

View from my mom's room.

Melanie's room was the twin-bedded room off of the entry hallway, and while it had a garden view rather than a water view, it was also the room that could be made the darkest for sleeping since it was south facing. Once the jalousied windows were all shut up for the a/c to be on, the room turned into a crisp little cocoon. Mom and Melanie shared a bathroom in the hallway, and while I never could get a good angle to photograph it, they had a glassed-in shower similar to the one in our bedroom.

Melanie's bedroom and the shared bath are off this hallway.

The painting in the bathroom

I also liked the small, original painting hanging in their bathroom. The house was filled with little artistic touches, which I of course failed to photograph. My favorite piece in the house was a signed & numbered lithograph hanging in the living room of a boy standing in front of a light blue chattel-style home, with long shadows thrown across the image. There were also lots of handmade little touches, like metalwork switchplates for the light switches. It's so nice when the owners put that much thought into the visual aesthetics and place a priority on individual pieces of art rather than put up on their walls the same old, faded island posters that are found everywhere. Even outdoors there were nice touches, such as the bell at the entryway, which DH suspects might be the work of Tom Torrens:

By the front door, seen at night

The area between kitchen & sitting area, with library.

The living room is divided into two sitting areas: one with the flatscreen TV (with DVD and Blue Ray players) and one with some of the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in.  Those two swiveling, rocking, padded and ultra-comfy chairs were pretty amazing.

The TV area, with screen doors to patio beyond.

The second sitting area

My favorite chair ever.

The second morning, I was sitting there with my coffee and a book and DH asked me why I was inside. I told him to try the chair opposite me and he would understand why, and after that it was rare that I had another chance to sit there, because he and my mom kinda took over.  They know a good thing when they see it  sit on it.

See what I mean? There they are, in my chairs. Behind to the left is the master bedroom, and the sliding door behind my mom leads to the pool and is the cause of all of the backlighting.

Pool, looking toward the master bedroom 

Looking toward mom's bedroom and the dining area

Now, for the outdoor spaces.  One of the best things about villa vacation is that typically you have as much outdoor space as indoor space to call your own, and Euphoria was no exception. No matter whether you wanted some space to yourself or space to be social, a place in the sun or a place in the shade, Euphoria has you covered. The owners had recently bought all new pool furniture in an Adirondack style with padded seat covers, all in a sturdy material that was something like a pressurized polycarbonate. Much better and more durable than the traditional wood for a seaside setting.

That's Prickly Pear in the background

There was another set of chaises longues off of our bedroom

The pool was bigger in person than it looks in any of the photographs I saw on line or made myself. It's not a huge pool--you're not going to swim laps in it or anything--but all four of us could be in there at once, floating around and treading water and not feel like we were going to run into each other.

Pool seen from the living room

Looking at pool from outdoor dining area

Outdoor dining area

There wasn't a bad view from anyplace outside.

My mom's little balcony area

DH posing with one of his books in our little private alcove

We could see Mosquito Island (where Branson's crews were at work), Prickly Pear, and much of the North Sound, including across the water to Bitter End Yacht Club and the just the top of the main dining pavilion at Biras Creek. With my husband's camera I could even get a decent shot of Saba Rock.

Saba Rock, seen from our patio

When standing up, you could see the rooftops of the villas that were lower than ours on the hillside, but when sitting or in the pool, it was nothing but that beautiful horizon. We didn't have a true sunset view, but we could see the play of light to the west in the evenings, but oh, what glorious sunrises we saw!

And here are a couple of shots I made of the villa from the road above Leverick Bay, looking down. It gives a good idea of how close to the water we were:

Euphoria with sailboat in background

Super-closeup shot of Euphoria

And until I get some shared photographs from my mom and Melanie, that concludes our tour of Euphoria Villa for today.  Thanks for coming along for the ride!

One of the many beautiful blooms in the surrounding gardens