Today is a holiday for the nation of
Anguilla. Not sure exactly what
Anguilla Day is but it was cause for celebration. Each year, on this day, they have a Round The Island Boat
Race. Hope the pictures turned out
because these boats were awesome. There
were 13 boats in the race. Once boat
lost his mast and had to be towed back in to shore before the race even
started. A second boat had trouble at
the start and only did a donut in the bay before heading back to shore. Not sure what their problem was but they
dropped out of the race. The other 11
boats sailed off and disappeared around the corner of the bay. Now we wait for their return.
We figured it’d be several hours before they
returned so we decided to snorkel the coastline. The shoreline is very rocky but not sure if there will be coral
(like at the last rocky shoreline in the BVI) or if it will just be rocks.
The water wasn’t as clear as BVI. There were small patches of coral but for
the most part it was just rocks. We saw
a 3ft barracuda as soon as we got in the water. If you looked real closely at the rocks, there were actually a
lot of reef fish swimming about … some were less than an inch in length but
vibrant blue and yellow coloring to them.
Others were larger and easier to spot.
A little disappointing but still a nice snorkel day. It was good just to be in the water
again.
Once we finished snorkeling at this spot, we
went across the bay to where there were two freighter-type ships wrecked on
shore. We were hoping they would
attract more fishes. Unfortunately,
when we got over there, it turned out, they were really washed on-shore … hard
aground. Nothing was in the water
except maybe up to a foot in depth.
Didn’t make for good snorkeling at all.
But Larry snorkeled around some nearby rocks anyways. It’s hard to keep him out of the water. He saw an eel and took some close-up
pictures of the wreck so it wasn’t a total write-off.
Back on Soulmatie, we showered and got ready
to go ashore. The beach had become
crowded with locals. The music was loud
and it was a party!
Just as we got in the dinghy to head ashore,
we saw the racing boats returning. We went
over to the finish line and waited with the other onlookers. We were right there when the first two boats
fought their way across the finish line.
They were within seconds of each other.
The boat that was slightly behind the first boat actually smashed into
it as they tried to take the lead. It
was very exciting to watch so up close, right there where the action was
happening!
Onshore, we watched the rest of the boats
return. It turned out; the weather was
too bad to do a circumnavigation of the island. Not sure exactly where they went in the 3-ish hours they were
gone but it was still an exciting race.
People were saying that this year the officials were extra cautious. They almost cancelled the race completely
because of the weather but they thought it would be bad for moral if they
didn’t allow some type of race. Last
year they actually lost 3 boats because of bad weather and it was devastating
to the community. They didn’t want a
repeat. The weather on the windward
side of the island can get VERY rough and unpredictable. I’m sure they made a wise decision to keep
the race leeward of the weather.
The beach was crowded. There was music from several different
sources. We got a couple of beer ($2.00
each) and walked the beach and through the small (very small) town that’s here
at the shoreline. There are maybe a
dozen restaurants (some weren’t even open … surprisingly for the # of people
here that they wouldn’t open today).
There was a small mini-mart. It
reminded me of the supermarkets back in many of the Bahamas islands. It had a few shelves on the walls and one
row of shelves down the middle but almost everything was bare. The products were spread out wide along the
shelves to try to fill the space and make it seem like they actually had
stock. It probably would have all fit
onto one shelf. At least they had a
beer cooler. We got another couple of
beers (Elephant Beer $3.00 and Presidente $2.00) … nice and cold.
We had planned on eating ashore. We’d hoped there would be more booths for
food, etc but there really wasn’t much.
The restaurants were crowded and expensive. A burger was $16.00 …nachos were $13.00 … ouch! We decided to head back to Soulmatie for a
dinner from our supplies.
I made a yummy pizza and we had our homemade
wine and enjoyed the music and view from afar.
By about 8pm, the music died and the beach cleared out … not the wild
nightlife I would have expected for a national holiday. I guess they all have to work tomorrow … too
bad!
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