EssentialExcursions
A Caribbean expert shares his
favorite beaches where you can...
Avoid other people
When I arrive on uninhabited
Conception Island in the Bahamas,
my reward is nine miles of unnamed
beaches with sand as soft as silk. No
ferries travel to this Bahamian “Out
Island,” but Stella Maris Resort
Club (800-426-0466; stellamaris
diving.com), on neighboring Long
Island, runs scuba diving trips there
roughly once a week. If there’s room,
you can come along ($50). The island is a nature park, and the only
other beachcombers you’re likely
to see are the occasional nesting sea
turtles. Three hundred miles south
of Conception Island is tiny Salt Cay,
in the Turks and Caicos, home to
North Beach, my second-favorite
deserted shore. North Beach is a
long, straight strand as white as the
salt that made this cay famous back
in the 17th century. To get there, rent
a bicycle at Salt Cay Divers ($10)
near Balfour Town, the island’s
only settlement. It’s about a 10- to
15-minute bike ride from the shop
to the beach, but don’t worry: the
ride is easy and flat.
ready for a spectacular breach. More
dedicated wildlife watchers can join
local whale whisperer Captain Everette Freites with nearby Oasis Divers
(800-892-3995; oasisdivers.com).
Freites runs three-hour up-close excursions in February and March ($65)
aboard his boat, the Prince of Whales.
VOLCANIC VACA TION On Montserrat
a boat tour will take you so close to the
rumbling Soufrière Hills Volcano that
you’ll smell the sulfurous fumes.
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; tropical
trailrides.com). He and wife Michelle
run twice-daily trips ($45) along
pristine beaches, through a shaded
almond grove, and out along empty
Survival Beach, a wide swath of
honey-colored sand that’s backed by
150-foot limestone cliffs pocked with
eerie sea caves.
visited. “She’s half shark and half
octopus and likes to eat people and
boats.” Small Hope Bay Lodge (800-
223-6961; smallhope.com) runs all-day Blue Hole Folklore Tours ($75,
though the price drops for groups)
around the Bahamas’ largest island.
I ignored his tales and snorkeled
into the underwater grotto, only to
discover a whirling school of Atlantic
spadefish—and the ghostly bones
of a recent shipwreck.
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 mile-deep Turks Island
Passage on their way to mate and give
birth farther south. Sit on the sunny
deck at the new Ike & Donkey beach
bar at the Bohio Dive Resort (649-231-
3572; bohioresort.com), order some
conch salad, and keep your camera
Snorkel with a sea monster
You won’t catch many locals swimming near the seemingly bottomless blue hole at Conch Sound off
Andros Island. “Lusca lives here,”
a tour guide warned me last time I
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
the British territory of Montserrat.
But Captain Troy Deppermann of
the Green Monkey Inn and Dive
Shop (664-491-2628; divemontserrat
.com) gets me daringly close to
the beach on one of his boating
Island Tours ($55 per person for a
minimum group of four). Beyond the
dunes I can see the haunting ruins
of Plymouth, the former capital of
Montserrat and now a modern-day
