The Valley, Anguilla: the capital, the beaches and the boat racing

Geology explains Anguilla quickly. It is a low platform of coral limestone with no volcanic peak, which means no relief to catch rain, so the island is dry, scrubby and low — the highest point is a modest rise, and the interior is thorn scrub, salt ponds and goats rather than forest. That aridity is why there is so little agriculture and why the island historically exported salt from its ponds. It also produces the beaches: with no rivers running off the land, nothing muddies the water, and the reef that fringes most of the coast keeps the bays calm and shallow. The result is a series of white powder crescents with startlingly clear water, spread right around the island rather than concentrated on one sheltered side. The useful distinction here is not which coast you are on but how developed a bay is: Shoal Bay East and Meads Bay have hotels, beach bars and some company; Rendezvous Bay is a very long stretch with a view across to the mountains of Saint-Martin; and a good number of bays in the east and along the north have nothing on them at all beyond a track and a parked car.

The capital is small, central and — put plainly — not a sight. It exists to run the island: ministries, the bank, the court, a supermarket, and traffic that consists mainly of people doing errands. That said, three things justify an hour. Wallblake House is the island's oldest surviving building, an eighteenth-century timber and stone house restored and open on limited days, and it is the only place on Anguilla where you can see historic domestic architecture rather than modern villas. The Heritage Collection Museum, a modest private collection, does the island's story from Amerindian pottery through the sloop-racing tradition, and is far more interesting than its size suggests. And the old cotton gin and the surrounding streets give a sense of what the place looked like before tourism. Set expectations accordingly: nobody comes to Anguilla for its capital, and the town does not pretend otherwise. Combine it with the salt pond and the nearby north-coast beaches to make a morning of it, and eat somewhere else.

This is the part of Anguilla that has nothing to do with visitors, and it is the most interesting thing on the island. The national sport is not cricket but sailing — specifically, racing locally built wooden sloops, a class that evolved from the working boats islanders used for fishing and inter-island trade. The boats are built on the island, carry an enormous press of sail for their size, are ballasted with lead and crew ballast that shifts on command, and have no cabins or engines. Races are held on public holidays and during the August carnival week, starting from a beach with the crews wading out, and the whole island turns up — the shoreline packed, everyone with an opinion, and serious money and prestige riding on the result. Boats and their crews carry generational rivalries. If your visit coincides with a race day, drop everything and go: it is free, entirely local, and utterly unlike the yachting culture of the wider Caribbean, which is about visiting boats rather than island-built ones.

Some of Anguilla's best days out involve leaving it. Offshore lie a scatter of tiny uninhabited cays, most reachable by a short boat ride, and each has become known for a particular kind of afternoon. Sandy Island is barely more than a sandbar with a few palms and a single beach restaurant, ringed by shallow turquoise water — you arrive by small boat from Sandy Ground, swim, eat grilled fish, and leave. Prickly Pear, further out, has two cays and a longer crossing, with good snorkelling over reef and a shack for lunch. Scilly Cay, off Island Harbour in the east, is reached by waving from the pier for a boat to come and fetch you, which is exactly as charming as it sounds. All of these operate seasonally and on their own rhythms, and several close in the low season entirely, so ask locally before setting a plan. Back on the main island, the reef makes for straightforward snorkelling from several beaches, and the diving includes a number of vessels deliberately sunk to form artificial reefs.

Anguilla has a food reputation out of all proportion to a population of a few thousand, and it operates at two ends with little in between. At the top are a genuinely serious set of restaurants attached to the resorts, several run by chefs with international reputations, which is why the island draws people who plan trips around dinner. At the other end, and far more fun, are the beach shacks: open-sided timber structures on the sand grilling crayfish — the local spiny lobster, split and barbecued — along with chicken, ribs and johnnycakes, with rum punch and, on the right night, a live band and dancing on the sand. Sandy Ground, a village on a narrow spit between the sea and a salt pond, is the centre of that: it holds the island's small commercial harbour, several bars, and the nightlife such as it is, which is convivial rather than loud. Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons are when things happen. Ask at your accommodation which shack is cooking on which night, because it genuinely rotates.

Access shapes a trip here. Anguilla's own airport (AXA) takes regional aircraft, but the overwhelmingly common routing is to fly into Sint Maarten (SXM), which has long-haul service from Europe and North America, and then cross the eight kilometres of channel. Two ferry routes do that: the long-established public ferry from Marigot, on the FRENCH side of Saint-Martin, to Blowing Point, and a faster private boat service direct from the airport on the Dutch side. Both involve immigration formalities on arrival, since Anguilla is a separate territory. Once on the island, a hire car is close to essential — the beaches are dispersed, public transport is minimal, and taxis use fixed published rates that add up quickly. Driving is on the LEFT, with a temporary local permit issued at the rental desk. Seasonally, December to April is dry, reliable and expensive; the shoulder months either side are the value window; the hurricane season runs June to November, and a fair number of restaurants and small hotels close for several weeks in late summer.