Eagle Beach is the widest stretch of sand on the island of Aruba, in the Dutch Caribbean, on the leeward coast north of Oranjestad, a beach of powder-white sand so broad that the walk from the road to the waterline is felt in the calves, and it is known for two low fofoti trees leaning toward the sea, trained into that lean by a trade wind that blows almost every day of the year. The sand is coral and shell ground fine, cool underfoot, and the beach was left without the high-rise hotels that line Palm Beach to the north, so the low resorts stand back across the road and the sand stays open, with the calm water of the lee shore, clear and warm, shelving gently for swimming; the two fofoti trees, a species of buttonwood, lean southwest because that is where decades of wind have pushed them, their exposed roots gripping the white sand like knuckles, and they are the most photographed trees on the island, taken for the divi-divi that lean the same way inland. The trade wind is the island's climate, steady from the east, which keeps the beach cool and the sea flat on this side.
From March to September leatherback turtles, the biggest on Earth and the only sea turtles that carry no hard shell, come ashore on this sand at night to nest, and from March the volunteers of Turtugaruba mark each new nest with stakes and rope, so that the squares stay in plain sight on the beach through the summer while the eggs incubate for about two months, and the hatchlings cross the sand to the sea from May into November, sometimes in daylight with the volunteers keeping the gulls off. The beach is ranked among the best in the world in most years, and it fills on the weekends with island families and their tents, while the weekday mornings are quiet. Eagle Beach is a beach the wind shaped, and the turtles come to it in the dark.