Pink Sands

Pink Sands is an almost excessively cultured little place—the sheets are Frette, there are macadamia nut cookies in your mini bar, your bedroom is decorated with hibiscus and batik, and people tend not to stay up very late. In many ways, Pink Sands fits right in with Harbor Island, a community that still looks a lot like the way the Loyalists left it in the eighteenth century; pastel houses and white picket fences. There are no cars. People travel by golf cart.

Sound a little too sleepy? Well, there is live entertainment in the evenings sometimes, including a nonagenarian called Dr Seabreeze who has been playing old Bahamian tunes every Tuesday night for as long as anyone can remember. There is action in the main house at night, where Alki the bartender mixes up a mean cocktail and will entertain you for hours with his stories. Still, it is not, perhaps, the ideal place for the restless; at Pink Sands, tranquility and politesse reign. All the same, some guests move in for as long as a month. And those guests, by the way, include Annie Leibovitz, Keith Richards, Martha Stewart and just about everyone in between. Obviously, tranquility enjoys the adoration of a diverse mix of fans.

There’s the sweet smell of jasmine—which grows on the property in profusion—at night. There’s a sleigh bed in the lobby, with hundreds of pillows to sink into. There’s the aroma-therapeutically soothing rosemary mint shampoo in your bathroom cabinet, and a porch swing on which to rock. And of course there are the stretches of surreally rose-tinted beach.

If it could calm a Rolling Stone, it could probably calm you. The choicest room is the Bimini Villa, with its private jacuzzi and teak patio. But the best thing about Pink Sands? The lighting. Lighting at Pink Sands is all candles and soft apricot lamps, under which it is simply impossible not to look fabulous. And if that doesn’t put your mind at ease, nothing will.

How to get there:
Getting from North Eleuthera Airport to Pink Sands involves taking a 15-minute taxi ride to the dock, a 5-minute water taxi across to Harbour Island and then another 15-minute taxi ride to Pink Sands. Each stage costs $5 per person. Transport is always available. There is also a ferry that leaves Nassau daily for Harbour Island at 8:00 AM and arrives at 10:30 AM. It costs $60 USD per person, one-way. The same ferry returns from Harbour Island to Nassau leaving at 3:50 PM arriving Nassau at 6:20 PM. This is the only time it runs and the ferry port is a 45-minute taxi from the Nassau airport.