Anse Chastanet

The road down to Anse Chastanet is the kind of road that makes rental car companies nervous. It drops steeply from the main coastal route north of Soufrière in a series of hairpins that require commitment and a certain willingness to ignore the drop on the passenger side, and in wet season it is genuinely rutted in places. Most people take a water taxi from Soufrière, which takes about ten minutes and deposits you directly on the beach. This is the right choice, and the approach by sea is its own pleasure — you come around a point and the beach appears, a dark curve of sand backed by jungle, the Pitons framing the southern end.

The sand at Anse Chastanet is not the white powdery kind that travel photography favors. It is dark — volcanic in origin, granular, and warm in a way that seems to store the day’s heat longer than lighter sand does. The color reads as grey-brown in overcast light and deepens to something closer to graphite when wet. Against the turquoise and blue of the water, the combination is dramatic rather than conventionally pretty, and the light on a clear afternoon, when the sun is heading toward the Pitons to the south, does things with shadow and color that I spent a long time just watching.

The reef begins almost immediately offshore — in places you can be snorkeling in coral in water barely deeper than you are tall. The dive operation here is serious and well-regarded, and the reef off the point to the south of the beach, known as Turtle Reef, has the kind of coral coverage that has become genuinely rare in the Caribbean. I saw a hawksbill turtle within the first five minutes of getting in the water, moving through the coral with the dreamy efficiency of something that has been swimming here since before the concept of tourism existed. The parrotfish were large, the grouper were present, the visibility was thirty feet without trying.

What I remember most specifically about the morning I spent at Anse Chastanet is the quality of the light at around eight o’clock, before the sun had moved high enough to flatten everything. The Pitons to the south were still partly in shadow, the water in the foreground was backlit, and the beach had only a handful of people on it — a German couple setting up snorkel gear, a local man raking the strand of palm debris that had blown in overnight. The resort hotel above the beach had not yet begun its morning service. There was a moment that lasted maybe twenty minutes that felt absolutely still and absolute.

There is a second smaller beach, Anse Mamin, a short walk north through the estate property, with a ruined plantation mill that you pass on the way through. The trail between the two beaches takes about ten minutes and passes through forest where breadfruit trees grow enormous and the light comes through in pale green columns. Anse Mamin is smaller and quieter than Anse Chastanet, and at the right time of year the coral there is in remarkably good condition.

When to go: The dry season from January through April brings the clearest water and calmest sea conditions, optimal for diving and snorkeling. The reef is visible year-round. Arrive early — by seven-thirty if possible — to have the beach to yourself before the water taxis from Soufrière start making regular runs. The resort day pass gives access to the beach and facilities if you are not staying.