A Trip to the Beach: Living on Island Time in the Caribbean (Paperback)

by Melinda Blanchard (Author), Robert Blanchard (Author) "FROM THE AIR ANGUILLA LOOKED narrow, flat, and scrubby, but that was only part of the picture..." (more)
Key Phrases: sustained winds, sea grape, domino game, Cap Juluca, Sandy Ground, Meads Bay (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
On a vacation with the family in Barbados, Mel and Bob Blanchard (of the Vermont-based Blanchard & Blanchard specialty foods company) stumble upon a tiny restaurant/shack on a Caribbean beach:

I marveled at the ingenuity of the set-up. A secluded spot, sand like flour, customers arriving in bathing suits. The guy barely lifted a finger, cleared at least $35.00, and gave us a lunch we'd remember forever.... The man had sold us a frame of mind.

So begins the Blanchards' 10-year pursuit of the illusory notion of "island time." In a literary heartbeat, they abandon the "concrete jungle" that was Vermont and open a restaurant on a little-known island in the British West Indies called Anguilla ("rhymes with vanilla"). Narrated by Mel Blanchard, A Trip to the Beach dispels tired notions of the Caribbean--the steel drums, the lush landscapes, and acres of swaying palm trees--and instead focuses on the understated elegance and