Where in Anguilla can you have a gourmet lunch barefoot in your wet swim wrap? . . .
December 1, 1997 - Site Map.

Restaurant Ici is open for lunch and dinner. I loved the Spring Roll and the Sausage Pizza for lunch. For dinner, reservations are recommended during the tourist season. Telephone: 264-497-6999.

Here are a few extracts from their dinner menu:

That is only a sample of their menu. Food lovers can read the entire menu.

With all the work establishing their new restaurant, Lisa and Alan have not slighted their popular Koal Keel Restaurant located in a historic building in The Valley. This year they have added two European-style fixed-price meals to their menu: a five-course meal for US$55 and a seven-course feast for US$75! The staff remains mostly the same: Ambrose as head waiter, Jerome and Pascal in the kitchen preparing delicious breads and pastries, and Smoke Sharplis as head chef. The wine steward is now Algernon. They are open for dinner only. 264-497-2930.

Shoal Bay Scuba and Watersports is a new dive shop on the beach at upper Shoal Bay, on the grounds of the Allamanda Beach Club. They went for their first night dive last week! 264-497-4371. Email: [email protected]

Mussingtons Band At Smitty's. Live music has started on Saturday nights, upstairs at Smitty's in the old ballroom. 264-497-4300

Wallblake House House. Becky Haskins reports that the winner of their raffle for a holiday in Anguilla was Robert Welch, Jr. of Florida. Sir Emile Gumbs, one of the trustees of this charity to restore Wallblake House, drew the winning ticket last Thursday night, November 27th.

More Information:
Beach and pool view from upstairs balcony.
Instant palm trees.
The Cerulean web page.
Other Anguilla villas.

So here is everything I know, but I am not a fishermen.

Can visitors fish in Anguilla? I checked with the Tourist Office and they say, except for spear fishing, "No problem". A license is not required. Only belongers are allowed to spear fish in Anguilla.

What about fishing from the shore? Certainly, but I couldn't find anywhere that rents poles or tackle. So bring your own equipment.

Can I rent a bare boat? No, not without the captain. There are dangerous reefs all around Anguilla and local knowledge is essential.

What about deep-sea fishing? Yes, although I have never talked to a visitor who has gone deep-sea fishing. Hint, now I am "fishing" for people to send me their experiences. Here is a list that I have gathered of boats that advertise fishing trips:

• Lionel Richardson, on Arvencia (see comments below), 264-497-2936.
• Ed Carty, on his Hatteress 31 (see comments below), 264-497-2337.
• Jason Lloyd advertises trolling for king fish, barracuda, albacore, line fishing for red hind and yellow tail snapper. 264-497-6395.
• Gotcha, 264-497-2956.
• Shawn Webster's Hoohaw, 264-497-4040 News article.
• Anguillan Divers, 264-497-4750
• Juniors Glassbottom Boat, 264-497-4456. Web page.
• Mike's Glassbottom Boat will take you fishing for $30. 264-497-5641/5058, after hours: 4360/4155.
• Sandy Island Enterprises, 264-497-5643. Web page.
• Keg Rogers, Island Harbour. 264-497-4487.

Experienced sports fishermen Georget Petrilak writes: I have gone out with Lionel Richardson, 497-2936, on Arvencia, a new 30' center console boat out of Crocus Bay. He is set up for line fishing (bottom fishing) and trolling with 2 rods. We have caught a lot of bottom fish as well as tuna, barracuda and snappers while trolling, called towing in Anguilla. The boat has dual 150 outboards and is a very good sea boat. I have also gone out with Ed Carty, 497-2337, on his Hatteress 31 from Sandy Ground. He owns the Fish store in North Hill. He is set up very well with outriggers and usually runs 5 rods. He doesn't always agree to take people out, especially if you get seasick ! Very knowledgeable fisherman.

Blowing Point has a lot more to it than the ferry to St Martin.

Big Jim's Snack Bar reputedly has the best bbq chicken and ribs in Anguilla, some people say the world. Currently his place is the plywood stand just before the ferry terminal. This is just a temporary replacement for his ancient concrete structure that blew away in Hurricane Luis--you can see that Big Jim is building a much larger permanent structure. If you drop in you may see cows munching the grass and the tables full of domino players.

Big Jim Wins Rib-Off! Dec 6, 1997 was a culinary competition in Anguilla. Big Jim won the rib-off contest against some seriously good competition.

Big Jim's real name is Alfred Romney and he sells cold drinks, plus bbq chicken for EC$6, bbq ribs for EC$8 and johnny cakes for EC$1. Big Jim has been open for 15 years, so he is an institution. He gets a lot of visitors as customers, as well as locals. Big Jim's schedule is Mon-Sat, 10am to 7pm and his sister-in-law opens Sunday from 11am to 5pm. They are happy to prepare take out.

As of May 1998, the walls are up for Big Jim's new bar and restaurant at the ferry terminal. If you want to taste his award-winning BBQ ribs while he still cooks them leaning out the window of his temporary place, don't wait too long.

News. Dec 15, 1997: Amy has a new snack bar next to the bakery called Amy's Place. They sell iced tea, lemonade drinks, sodas, and sandwiches, pizzas and other snacks for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Amy's Bakery is run by Amy Connor and her two daughters. Driving into Blowing Point you will see it on the left side of the road about 200 yards from the beach. She has a reputation for great pastries and sandwiches. People come from all over to shop here. She has customers from the United States, Canada and Europe. In Hurricane Luis the bakery suffered massive water damage, but reopened quickly. They sell cakes, brownies, bread pudding, tarts, muffins, cup cakes, sandwiches and cold beverages. You can try a slice of cake for EC$3 or buy an entire cake for EC$50, or even order a custom cake made for you. Amy's is open Mon-Sat, 6am-6pm.

Guest article by Danny Laud, Student

Pierre Bourque writes "Lest you islanders all think that things everywhere are as they are in Anguilla, allow me to mention that it is sub-zero here in Ontario, Canada and it has snowed about a foot in the past 24 hours." Anguilla also had a cold snap in mid-November, which caused us to add a light blanket to our bed. The temperature plunged to 77 F at night and a cold wind sprung up. The wind chill factor must have dropped the effective temperature to 74 F at least. This was a reminder that winter is here, even in the Caribbean.

Here are some events scheduled for the next few weeks. If you are interested, check with your hotel concierge or the tourist office.

• Dec 5. Tourism Gala Dinner at Cinammon Reef. 7pm-midnite.
• Dec 6. Colossal Culinary Cook-Off at Anguilla Great House, noon-6pm.
• Dec 6. Soropotomists Annual Christmas Fair. $1US/2EC. Governor's House grounds, Old Ta (turn up hill at the light by the Cable TV). Noon to 5pm. Crafts, games, food.
• Dec 6. Youth Talent Explosion Show at Landsome Bowl. Optimists Club.
• Dec 9. Christmas Fair, Fund raising lunch by the teachers and students of the West End Primary School. 11:30 AM to 2PM. EC$15.
• Dec 12. Christmas school break is 3 weeks.
• Dec 18. Separation Day. Public Holiday. Commemorating the official date of Anguilla's political separation from St. Kitts and Nevis.

Car Rental Rates. Anguilla has numerous car rental places. For example, Thrifty is located in The Valley across the street from Cable and Wireless. They have small, standard transmission cars for $35/day, $225/week, small automatics for $42 and $260, automatics with airco for $45 and $280, and Japanese "jeeps" for $50 and $310. 264-497-2656

The booklet is sold at the Arts and Craft Center, Anguilla Drug Store, and most gift shops.

Here is a sample about the now defunct Salt Industry:

To reap the salt, crews of 4-6 men and women waded into the pond, poling a large flat-bottomed wooden boat called a "flat". With gloved hands the cake of salt was brought up from the bottom, rinsed in a basket and thrown into the flat where it broke into small crystals of salt from 1/2" to 1" in diameter. When full of salt, the flat was taken to the edge of the pond and loaded into barrels where it was taken on a concrete ramp to the salt heap, with the aid of a front end loader. Each flat held about 18 barrels of salt with each barrel weighing 300 pounds. The salt was left in large heaps until shipped to the factory to be ground into fine salt.

More books about Anguilla.

Trattoria Tramonto is a new restaurant in the West End, and the web page has the complete menu.

Devonish.ai is the web address for the Devonish Art Gallery. See what shows they are planning this winter and play with the amazing rotating wood sculpture - you click and drag it to see how it looks from all angles!

More Underwater Pictures. We recently featured Red Lynch's underwater photo tour of Anguilla, and here is another underwater tour, this one by Chris Mason.

Another Small Map of Anguilla. This one shows the location of all the offshore cays, including Sombrero.

Objective Observer is a column in our local newspaper. Topics range from Anguilla road work to US and Anguillian culture - with local news as well. It is available at two places on the Internet: www.beachbum.ai for recent articles and a cartoon, and web.ai/oo for an archive going back to early 96. You can sign up with the anonymous OO to receive his/her columns via email as they are written. Here is a short excerpt from a recent column:

THE OBJECTIVE OBSERVER (c) 1997 by RK Publications

The Objective Observer appears as a weekly column in Anguilla's [only] newspaper *The Light*. The column is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced without permission. Questions, comments, and index of column titles to or from [email protected]

* Treadmill *

There's good and bad news, Readers. The bad news is that technology marches on, and PC Magazine reports that an inhuman device called the quad-density DVD is now under intensive development. This weapon of mass destruction "might contain at least 400 hours [of music]. One such disk could potentially play music 24 hours a day for more than 16 days before repeating." For all those local enterprises which serve no chicken and no chips (and no nothing else) without musical accompaniment, maybe the era of incessant din is dawning, but for those of us who love the quiet of Anguilla, Let's Get Together and Feel All Punk.

... Now read the rest of this column.

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