By Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon
CJ Travel Editor

They call it swimming beach. But they really should call heaven on earth.

Because that’s what it feels like on this Monday morning as I sit on a deck chair facing the sea, listening to the rhythmic sound of waves lapping against the shores of Deep Water Cay, a two-square-mile private-island resort just east of Grand Bahama.

In front of me, nature demonstrates color-blocking skills superior to that of any fashion designer: horizontal striations of tawny sand, transparent aqua and deep navy meet an emerald stripe of mangrove and the cloudless turquoise sky. A westerly breeze makes the canvas scallops of my beach umbrella flutter, and coconut palm fronds whisper against textured tree trunks.

Here, on this white-sand sweep, my perch is one of only six chairs, arranged in pairs and positioned a respectful distance from each other. I’m the only person here. (The Cay’s other guests have gone fishing, I presume, since world-class bonefishing in the surrounding flats has brought fishermen and their families here for more than half a century.) And I feel like the luckiest, having Swimming Beach all to myself.

Well, almost.

The frosty Kalik in my hand has only just begun to sweat when I spot a cushion starfish as large as a dinner plate and as orange as the fruit itself at the water’s edge. And not two seconds later a ray appears mere feet from the shore, its expanse casting a shadow in the crystal shallows as it glides swiftly and silently by.

But they are the only distractions on this tranquil strip. There’s no music, no beach toys, and no jet skis buzz by. AJ’s Bar, the resort’s oceanfront watering hole, won’t be open until later in the afternoon. So for now it’s just me, and the Caribbean trifecta of sun, sea, and sand.

And it’s all that I need.