For 10 days we’d been anchored in Road Bay, the semi-sheltered harbor attached to the village of Sandy Ground, Anguilla. There’s a “whole lotta nothing” happening there, and to the locals that’s just fine. The beach holds seven businesses that dispense food, drink and enticing island music. The only road holds two more, along with three tiny places that pass as stores selling the most basic of provisions; tinned food, cold drinks and the occasional onion. A large cement pier attached to the customs house is very busy these days, hosting ships carrying the ingredients for making big fancy hotels. Anguilla has become the destination for the rich and famous of the world, though only a few of them ever find their way to Sandy Ground.

From the air, the beach and road look like a striped ribbon, dividing the sea from the giant salt pond that fills the valley of Sandy Ground. This sometimes heavy smelling, shallow pond, filled with brackish water, is home to egrets, ducks, yellow legs and a host of other wildlife. It also holds a vital piece of Anguilla’s history and the early economic tie that bound it to the world.

It was on one of my walks up the hill past the pond that I stumbled on the Sandy Ground story I’d been looking for. I thought I’d find it in one of the restaurants or bars, but it was right beside me, larger than life, laying on the surface of the 130-acre salt pond.


Through the years I’ve gleaned bits and pieces of the salt story, but too few to weave the true picture. I would need some help filling in the gaps and I knew just who to ask. Belto Carty, 90 years young this March, has lived beside the pond nearly his entire life. I found him in his sign-less, white Delicate Bar, shelling pigeon peas with his daughter. The open door faces the pond and through it a cast of characters flows in and out throughout the day, along with the trade winds that sweep the pond, collecting its earthy scent.

I greeted him, “Good afternoon, Belto. How are you?”

“Afta-noon madam. Fine, fine,” he said. Seeing that he was busy with the peas, I volunteered to get myself a cold drink from the cooler and put my money in his cardboard box “cash register.” “Dis me daughter. She live Sen Thomas,” he said. Mariette and I shook hands and spent some minutes getting acquainted before I got to the point.

“Belto, I want to know the story of harvesting the salt. Can you help me?”

“Dat a long time ago. I don remember so much,” he said.

The man is sharp as a tack. He couldn’t fool me … so I got him started by asking about the pump house, a group of wooden buildings down the road that still hold the machinery that ground the collected salt for exportation. The original pump house has been tastefully restored and artfully converted into The Pumphouse, one of the island’s most popular restaurants and dance spots. It’s owned and operated by Anguillian Laurie Gumbs and his beautiful German wife, Gabi.


“Well,” Belto began, “de pump house was where dey grin da salt. Dey put it in de bags an put dem on de ships.”

“What kind of ships were they and where did they take the salt?” I asked.

“Dey schooners. De ones was bilt right ere. Dey sail to Trinidad, Sen Lucia, Sen Kitts, Barbados. All de islands.” Belto had sailed those engineless vessels laden with salt outbound from Anguilla, returning with produce, lumber, whatever the island needed.

“I thought the pump house was for pumping the water out of the pond,” I said.

“Dat too. Dey had de pumps dere an dey pump de water out so de people could collect de salt.” Mariette joined Belto to explain that the sea water came into the pond through a canal at one end. Once enough sea was inside, they closed the canal and allowed the water to evaporate and turn to brine. Eventually the excess water was pumped back to the sea.

Mariette demonstrated how people scooped the salt up with their hands, placing it in baskets. It was transferred to large wooden trays called flats and when heaped full, skidded ashore. At the edge of the pond it was transferred to boxes the salt workers carried on their heads to a spot where it was piled to dry. The pile would grow so large that ladders were used to add on more. Belto continued, “Dey trow it out, heap it up in de sun until it get big, big. Dey take it from de heap when it got white, when it wash out from de rain. De rain make it white.”

The salt was then carried to the part of the pump house holding the grinders. Mariette added, “One lady goin in wit de boxes, one comin out. Work from morning to night. Work all year when we have salt.”

They both grew silent, focusing on the growing pile of shelled peas between them. I thanked them for their help and began my exit, when Mariette insisted, “You go see Mr. Emile. He know all about de salt. He run de bizness. You know him?”

I shook my head sideways.


“You know de white house wid all de flowers? Dat his house. You aks him.” Mr. Emile’s house, perhaps the most frequently photographed on the island, sits at the edge of the pond, a fence around it holding in a garden of bursting bougainvillea. The small West Indian styled structure is frosted with fretwork like a lacy wedding cake.

The next morning I found the gate open and stepped into the yard, calling, “Hello, hello?” A small barking dog shot out from under a truck sending me back to the street. On the upstairs porch a man appeared, his presence relaxing the dog. Straining to see him through the jungle of flowers, I introduced myself and my mission. Emile Gumbs invited me to come up the back stairs where he joined me with a warm handshake.

“Call me Emile,” he said. “Come in, please.” The moment I cleared the doorway I knew I’d entered the home of an extraordinary man. Walls were lined with shelves holding books; between them hung dozens of framed photographs and memorabilia. My eye caught the largest, a photo of Sir Emile Gumbs posed with Queen Elizabeth during her last visit to Anguilla. “Please, have a seat,” he said as we entered the small living area.


The house that had charmed me for years from the outside was even more enchanting inside. Arched doorways were crowned with double layers of gingerbread, and filigree ran around the room and up the seams connecting the roof. “This is the most beautiful West Indian house I’ve ever seen,” I said.

“My Grandfather had it built in 1909, the same year he had the Warspite built. He was a bosun sailing trading vessels out of Bristol.”

“Warspite?” I asked. “That’s Anguilla’s most famous schooner.”

From a file folder of papers next to him he produced several large photos of Warspite. One was taken at the solitary island of Sombrero, where the schooner routinely delivered and retrieved the lighthouse keepers. Like his grandfather and father, Emile owned and sailed Warspite until a hurricane set her on the beach to die in Sandy Ground. Next he handed me a photo of a dozen people formally posed. “Do you recognize anyone in this picture?” The man before me, much younger than his 80 years, stood behind a seated Ronald Reagan. The image was captured in the States during one of the many years Sir Emile was Anguilla’s Chief Minister.

In another file folder he retrieved several photos of a working salt pond. One showed 30 people working in a straight line near the three-foot dam, filling flats with salt. Those flats, 15 feet long and wide, were heaped with crystals. The last photo showed three mountains of salt, each 50 feet high. Sir Emile ran the salt operation and at its peak, in 1967, they harvested a record of 71,000 barrels, each weighing 300 pounds. Their sole customer then was Trinidad, where the salt was used in the oil refinery. When they lost that contract, the business dried up.

For over an hour I asked and he answered. I could have stayed all day, but not wanting to wear out my welcome, I thanked him several times and left. On the way back to my dinghy I realized my story about the salt of the sea had become a story about two very amazing men, both the salt of the earth.

Pumphouse-Anguilla.com has great photos and more history about the salt industry and the very popular nightspot.

Jan