Essential Excursions
A Caribbean expert shares his favorite beaches where you can...
Avoid other people
When I arrive on Conception Island
in the Bahamas, my reward is nine
miles of beaches with sand as soft as
silk. No ferries travel to this uninhabited nature park, but Stella Maris Resort Club (800-426-0466; stellamaris
diving.com), on neighboring Long
Island, runs diving trips there roughly
once a week. If there’s room, you can
come along ($50). Three hundred
miles south is tiny Salt Cay, in the
Turks and Caicos, home to long and
beautiful North Beach, my second-favorite deserted shore. To get there,
rent a bike at Salt Cay Divers ($10)
near Balfour Town, the island’s only
settlement. It’s an easy (and flat)
15-minute ride to the beach.
Watch for whales
Pillory Beach, on Grand Turk island
in Turks and Caicos, has a front-row
seat to one of the planet’s greatest
wildlife migrations. From January
through early April, hundreds of
humpback whales pass 400 yards
offshore through the Turks Island
Passage on their way to mate and give
birth farther south. Sit on the deck
at the Ike & Donkey beach bar at the
Bohio Dive Resort (649-231-3572;
bohioresort.com), order some conch
salad, and keep your camera ready.
View a volcano
Thanks to the ongoing eruptions of
the Soufrière Hills Volcano, you can’t
stroll along the Caribbean’s newest
strand: Sugar Bay Beach in Montserrat. But Captain Troy Deppermann of
the Green Monkey Inn and Dive Shop
(664-491-2628; divemontserrat.com)
will get you daringly close on one of
his boating Island Tours ($55 per person for a minimum group of four).
Ride a horse
“It’s everyone’s fantasy, galloping
through the waves on an empty
beach,” says Craig Barker as I saddle
up on a Paso Fino horse next to
Shacks Beach in Isabela, Puerto
Rico. Barker, a California surfer,
came to the island’s wild northwest
coast for the waves but stayed to run
Tropical Trail Rides (787-872-9256;
tropicaltrailrides.com). He and wife
Michelle run twice-daily trips ($45)
along Survival Beach, a wide swath
of honey-colored sand backed by
150-foot limestone cliffs pocked with
eerie sea caves. —Jad Davenport
