Rendezvous Bay
"Saint-Martin sits right there on the horizon, close enough to almost wave at — and yet the two islands feel like entirely different arguments about how to live."
Rendezvous Bay is the longest beach on Anguilla, nearly three miles of interrupted white sand curving around the southwest shore, and what distinguishes it from the island’s other beaches is not the sand — which is, predictably, extraordinary — but the view. Across the water, Saint-Martin rises in a ridge of dark green hills, close enough on a clear day to make out individual buildings on the French side. You swim in Anguilla’s silence and watch a cruise ship dock at Philipsburg and feel the distance between the two islands in a way the map does not suggest.
I came to Rendezvous Bay in the early morning, before the heat had settled, walking down from the road through a path between low scrub and sea grape trees. The beach was empty. The tide was low, and the wet sand at the water’s edge held the reflection of the sky in long, wavering strips. I walked the full length of it without seeing another person for the first forty minutes, which is not the kind of solitude that feels lonely but the kind that feels like being trusted with something.
The Anguilla Great House sits at the eastern end of the bay — an older property, not flashy, with a restaurant whose tables are close enough to the water that the sound of the surf is ambient. I had breakfast there: fresh mango sliced in long strips, scrambled eggs with something they called pepper sauce that was neither pepper nor particularly saucy but was excellent, and strong coffee that came in a thermos on the table. The couple at the table next to me were from Saint-Martin, having taken the ferry over for the day specifically to have access to a quiet beach. They had chosen well.
Rendezvous Bay is also the end point of what I think of as the Blowing Point approach — if you take the ferry from Marigot and walk northeast from the terminal, you reach the bay without a taxi, which most visitors do not attempt but which is entirely manageable in twenty minutes. I did this on my last afternoon, arriving at the beach with a cold bottle of water and the sand still warm from the day’s sun, and swam until the light went and Saint-Martin became a silhouette and then a set of lights on the horizon and then just a glow, faint and orange, that could have been anything.
The western end of the bay, near the CuisinArt Golf Resort, has more activity — sunbeds, bar service, the usual resort infrastructure. The eastern end, nearer the ferry terminal, is where you go to be left alone. Both ends share the same water, which is calm enough for children and clear enough to see your feet at chest depth.
When to go: Rendezvous Bay faces southwest and catches the afternoon sun fully. Go in the morning for solitude and walking, return in the late afternoon for the light on Saint-Martin. December through April are the prime months; the rest of the year brings a higher chance of haze across the strait.