After visiting St. Barts, with all the tourists and busy shops, it’s good to visit a quieter island. Our ship, Nantucket Clipper, has moved on to the British island of Anguilla. At the time of the American Revolution, no one paid much attention to Anguilla. It was not a trading center, like St. Barts or Statia. The island had no sugar plantations, like St. Kitts or Antigua. Because no one paid much attention to the island, Anguilla became a hideout for outlaws, smugglers, and pirates. The pirates made Anguilla a dangerous place for other islands in the region. Even though Anguilla did not have sugar products, they did have another important export: salt. Salt was very important back in the days of the sailing ships. Before refrigerators were invented, people covered their meat with salt to keep it from spoiling. Anguilla has very shallow salt ponds, about two to three feet deep. Salt ponds are areas open to the sea. People block the sea opening to the ponds and let the sun evaporate the seawater. After the seawater evaporated, big white salt crystals remain. During Anguilla’s salt-producing days, people scooped up the salt, put it in bags, and sold it to passing ships. The ships used the salt to preserve their meats and sold the extra salt in England for people to use at home – just like you use salt in your home today! After refrigerators were invented, salt was not as important as it had once been. People discovered that it was easier and cheaper to dig up salt underground than to import it from the Caribbean. Fewer and fewer people bought salt from Anguilla and today the salt pounds are not used for collecting salt. Birds now live around the salt pounds and eat the small worms and snails that live in the shallow ponds. Walking along the beach, we saw two big ships washed up on the shore. Locals told us the last big hurricane had caused the shipwrecks. In November 1999, Hurricane Lenny caused 25-foot waves that washed the ships into the rocks on the side of the hill. We walked near the ships. The hulls (bottom and sides of a ship) had big holes where the vessels had smashed into the rocks. We carefully climbed inside the rusty ships. People had taken everything that could be removed from the structures. The ships are falling apart and eventually will fall into the sea. Hurricane Lenny caused a big landslide, too. We carefully climbed in front of a big section of cliff that had broken away from the side of the island. The cliff looked like that was ready to fall at any moment, so we quickly moved from underneath it and returned safely to our ship. |
Nantucket Clipper is docked at the pier in Road Bay, Anguilla. Only a few yachts are anchored nearby. A few homes and guesthouses can be found along the beach.
Behind the beach at Road Bay, where our ship is docked, is a huge salt pond. This salt pond was used to evaporate salt, which was sold to preserve foods or make foods taste better. Now the salt pond is a bird habitat.
Our expedition team almost breaks a bench, sitting together in the shade of a sea grape tree, looking for birds in the salt pond. Left to right: Matthew, Bethany, Wayne, Karen, Fredrick, and Fredrick’s dad, Fred.
Standing next to the wreck, Wayne looks like he’s holding up the big ship! You can see another shipwreck behind on the rocks under the cliff.
The ship Panhead, washed ashore and wrecked during Hurricane Lenny in November 1999. Panhead was a freighter that carried goods and supplies to Caribbean islands. |
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December 29, 2000
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