Back to Anguilla

We skipped off to our favorite place in the Caribbean, Cap Juluca in Anguilla. There really is no place else where we feel so relaxed. I don't know if it's the calm water, the soft sand, the friendly people, but you just can't feel anything but calm, relaxed and happy here. It's the perfect place to go when you want/ need to unwind. Basically, a typical day in Anguilla:  stunning beach, fine dining, beach bar with live music, repeat.  

Stunning beaches: 

Fine dining:

Our favorite restaurant on the island is Veya. 

This place is really something, the food is so creative and delicious, 

and the setting is so romantic.  

We dined at and highly recommend Veya, Jacala, Davida and Mango's 

among many other great restaurants on the island.  

Also, make sure you try the local lobster! 

Live Music:

Nightlife on the island is a beach bar with live music.

Bankie Banx at the Dune Preserve. 

He's really so good and no one should visit this island without seeing him.

Bankie Banks' son, Omari Banks is another must see.

Even at lunch one day... 

Some other things we did on this trip:

We did also check out the new hotel on the island, the Viceroy, which reminded us a lot of the D Hotel in turkey.  It was beautiful, but again, I don't think you can reach that level of relaxation there like you do at Cap Juluca. It's a stunning place set on a cliff, so you don't have the beach just outside your room like we do, but it really is pretty.  And it turns out my interior design crush, Kelly Wearstler, designed it.  Just beautiful!

We also wanted to do some adventuring and to check out other parts of the island we haven't seen before, so one day we rented a car and took it to the undeveloped eastern part of the island to do some hiking. We started out by driving as far as the road would take us, which brought us past some stunning homes, then we set out on foot. 

First we passed by Captain's Bay

Then through beautiful dessert. It actually kind of reminded me of Palm Desert in Palm Springs. 

We wanted to get to Windward Point, so we tacked on through the dessert, trying to be careful to not step on any cacti. They were everywhere!

Then we headed toward Savannah Bay, but man was it HOT! We kept seeing it off in the ditabce, but like a mirage in the desert, it was so close, yet so far. When we finally got there, we ordered food at this sweet little place called owned by this sweet little guy named Nat. 

And while Nat was cooking, I jumped into the water. 

After a refuel and recharge we headed to our car and back to our luxurious hotel. All told we did about 10 miles of exploring on foot. In the desert heat. Phew! 

We'll leave you with this sunset from our last night.  Cannot wait to go back!

Visiting Friends in Puerto Rico

Grabbing lunch at the beach bar.

We planned an impromptu trip to Puerto Rico to spend some time together before Jade graduated high school, I started working like crazy, and Jason left for a bunch of business trips.

I love renting an apartment (like we did in Paris) so we could cook some meals ourselves and live like a local... boy did we!







While there we visited Ivonne and Eric, who live in paradise.  They took us to a very local night out, with live music, people dancing in the streets, bar hopping, and FUN.  That's them waving in the video.  It was one of the coolest nights out ever.  There was live music everywhere, cheap rum punches, and tons of people just chatting, dancing, and laughing in the streets.  The video doesn't capture it, but it's the best we could do.

Jade and I shopped in Old San Juan while Ivonne worked and Jason and Eric golfed one day.

I bought the most beautiful handmade earrings and Jade and I stopped for some lunch and cocktails (hers was a virgin margarita).







The real adventure of the trip was a zip-line and waterfall rappelling tour in the rainforest.  What a rush!

That's Jade rappelling down a 90 foot waterfall!!!

Zip-lining, can't capture the fun in pictures!

Thanks for having us, guys!  Can't wait until next time!

Sailing the Caribbean

Days 12 - 14: Sandy Spit, Caneel Bay, St. Maarten

 On Monday morning, bright and early, we set sail to make our way back to St Thomas to end our trip. We were all a little sad as we made our way back to civilization. Along the way, we stopped for breakfast at this tiny little island (if you can call it that) off the coast of Jost Van Dyke, called Sandy Spit. After eating, we did some snorkeling and playing on the island before we headed back to the USVI. 

We decided to stop at St John for the night, knowing we had to be at St Thomas to turn the boat in by 9am. Another beautiful place! Jason and I went to the Caneel Bay Beach Resort for some shade and blog posting while the crazy ones went for a run. (Apparently 10 miles in the heat and sun were not enough to slow them down.) 

 We saw some cool Iguanas at the resort, who apparently thought they owned the place. They had no problem walking up to us in hopes of some cherries from our drinks! 

 We met Ian and Leah back at the boat, and mixologist Ian made us some cocktails from whatever remaining ingredients were on board. Then the four of us took the dinghy back to the resort for a last dinner (thanks, Leah!). It was seriously so much fun. I think the hotel guests were annoyed at how much laughter was coming from our table, but our waitress loved us. 

 When we got back to the boat, we smoked some Cubans (that we purchased legally in the BVI) and said goodnight one last time. 

 Tuesday morning we packed up, took the boat in and said goodbye to Ian and Leah, then Jason and I did some shopping at the market in St Thomas before catching our flight to St Martin. We had just this last night before our trip ended, so I had a little surprise planned for Jason. After we checked into our hotel and took a little walk around the property, we showered for dinner and had a private meal served to us in the gazebo!

 The view from our room 

 Our gazebo 

What a great dinner 

 Jason had no idea, but for months (and even up to the morning of our dinner) the concierge and I planned this meal, all the courses, where it would be served, she even secured a special waitress for us because she wanted it to be perfect. It really was, and Jason was totally surprised and loved it. It's not easy to surprise him, but I think I did. 

 On our final day, Wednesday, after breakfast we decided to go for a walk. Funny how 10 days with an adventure racer and his athlete/ fitness model/ tv personality wife can change the way you see limits to a walk. We started on the road, through the town and golf course and headed to a beach we saw in the distance. Once there, we walked the length of it and got to "the end" where there were woods, huge boulders and cliffs. Ian and Leah would be so proud, because instead of heading back the way we came, we climbed through the woods and along the rocky coastline in the direction of our hotel, but with no idea if we could get there this way.  

Hello lizard

After 90 minutes, some trespassing, plenty of pictures, some scary cliffs, and "around the next corner," we finally made it back to our hotel adventure racer style just in time to shower and check out. We gave the bellman our bags and made our way to the famous Sunset Beach Bar to watch some planes take off and land over drinks and lunch before catching our flight. 

 A plane landing 

As big jets were taking off, people would line up behind them so the jet blast would blow them back into the sea

The crowds getting ready for our takeoff 

 Goodbye Paradise!!!!

Sailing the Caribbean

Days 10-11: Bitter End Yacht Club, Anegada

We were so happy to sacrifice a stop at Willie T's for another day at the Bitter End, it's really quite beautiful. 

Our boat at Bitter End

We started the day Saturday with a hike after breakfast which was a lot of fun. 

We climbed to the top and back, Then we headed to the boat, jumped into the water for a quick swim, and went to the Bitter End for a yummy lunch, blog posting, and napping. 

We found out that for the cost of a mooring ball we could get free water and ice next door, so we headed over to fill our tanks and found this cute bar. Happy hour was until 6, so we moved faster than we have the whole trip to get there before it was over. 

Back to the boat for more drinks, dinner and a good night's sleep because...

Sunday morning Ian and I woke up at 6:30 and got the sails up with great winds as we put civilization behind us and headed for the desert island of Anegada.  Leah and Jason woke up about halfway there and we enjoyed the open sailing for about 2 hours until we reached this, the island of Anegada. It's a flat, scrubby island with about 200 people on it despite being the second largest of the BVI. 

Seriously amazing.

We frolicked on this beautiful beach for a bit and Ian suggested we pack a lunch and go of a walk. He remembered there was a bar about 2 hour walk away along the beach. Great idea, right? Let me just inform you that Ian is a 7 time world champion adventure racer. Google him. Ian Adamson. So we set off for a little walk suggested by Ian, the adventure racer. 

We stumbled on this little bar after having our lunch and a snooze on the beach after 4 miles/ 2 hours.

Did we stop here and get a taxi back? Nope. Ian said his bar was "just around the corner". Famous last words

We did find an awesome conch shell along the way,

Lots of birds,

A cow,

And nothing else.... For miles and miles.... We walked 10 miles, around lots of "corners" and saw no one. That's right, I said 10 miles. 5 hours of walking with no shade in the sand and rocks and water.

Here's the island. We walked from Ian's finger, left, up and over to well past the word Anegada. Too long for non 7 time world champion adventure racers.

We were down to no water, one power bar, and zero patience, when FINALLY, around the next corner we found the bar! Pretty cool, and the famous Foxy of Jost Van Dyke was drinking there and treated us to some rhymes while we waited for our well deserved lobster and drinks. 

My successful shell collecting

Foxy! From the cover of the Virgin Island tourism book (we didn't want to paparazzi him with a picture).

Lobster dinner

We got the taxi back to our boat, enjoyed more food, wine, and lots of laughs before we hit the bed for more early sailing the next day. Our trip is nearing its end and I'm so sad I could cry.