6. Pinney’s Beach, Nevis While this beach – four miles in length – is never crowded and has calm and shallow water perfect for gentle swimming or wading, what really marks it out is one of its bars, Sunshine’s. Named after a genial, dreadlocked Nevisian who likes to go by his soubriquet, the bar plays great music, offers tasty food for both lunch and dinner and a plentiful choice of drinks.
The most celebrated of these is Sunshine’s ‘Killer Bee’, a delicious but powerful concoction whose precise composition is a closely guarded secret. Suffi ce it to say that rum is one ingredient. Pinney’s, just north of Charlestown, is undeniably attractive in its setting, backing up to a grove of palm trees and a tropical lagoon. Behind it is Mount Nevis, a 3,200-foot volcano, while from the beach you can see neighbouring St Kitts, the picturesque sister island of Nevis.
7. Shoal Bay East, Anguilla For the softest, whitest and most perfect sand in the Caribbean, you can look no further than Anguilla. Flat and arid the island may be, but it has a string of magnifi cent beaches of which Shoal Bay East is arguably the fi nest, stretching for miles. Its whiter than white coral sand is so soft that it feels like talcum powder underfoot. A reef makes for calm waters to swim in and can be seen from glass-bottomed boats. The snorkelling is as good as anywhere on the island. A charming local character known as the ‘Pressure King’ hires out chairs and umbrellas while Uncle Ernie’s BBQ offers food and drinks. Plenty of beach bars can be found on this long beach, as well as a few small resorts. It comes alive on Sunday afternoons when live music is played.
8. St Jean, St Barts The tiniest of the French West Indian islands, St Barts, all eight square miles of it, gets the vote for the most chic and stylish beaches in the Caribbean. As a favourite haunt of the rich and famous, St Barts, with its unparallelled ambience of luxury and exclusivity, is especially popular with the luxury yacht set. St Jean is the perfect beach to show off your yacht, being right in the middle of the island a short hop from the little airport. This is no ordinary airport, requiring pilots to possess a special licence to be able to land on account of the ridge that protects the western end of the runway. Apart from people-watching, therefore, visitors to St Jean can watch the skilful manoeuvre necessary to land safely as light planes come over the ridge and lose height much more quickly than normal.
9. The Tides Sugar Beach, St Lucia This beach, nestled in between the two Pitons with the Piton Mitan Ridge behind it, is surrounded by some of the most dramatic, achingly beautiful scenery in the Caribbean. The Piton National Park, in the southwest of the island, is a UNESCO World Heritage site, according the beach rare status. Situated on the Jalousie Plantation, a former sugar estate turned top-end hotel that is being renovated by the Kor Hotel Group at a cost of US$100 million, it is soon to be rechristened The Tides Sugar Beach. Small and intimate, and reached after you wind your way down from the main road through 190 acres of lush, tropical forest, the beach is towered over by Gros Piton, 771 metres in height, and Petit Piton, 743 metres. Both, which can be climbed, are volcanic plugs. Indeed, sulphur springs can be found in the nearby Soufriere caldera.
10. White Bay, Jost Van Dyke Island, BVI A pristine, picture-postcard beach, White Bay has a good selection of bars, including one of the most famous in the Caribbean, the Soggy Dollar Bar. Until a road was cut in recently from Great Harbour, you could only access it by dinghy to the beach or by swimming from one of the boats moored in the bay. Wet, or soggy dollar notes were happily accepted by bar staff who would hang them on a line with clothes pegs to dry. The line is still there. Another spendidly named establishment, Ivan’s Stress Free Bar, is decorated from top to bottom with shells collected from the beach. Jewel’s Snack Shack and Gertude’s Restaurant offer food. A reef running nearly the full length of the beach provides calm waters and protection for swimmers.
A break in it allows yachts to enter and anchor safely.
