Spook Hill Beach

While most visitors to Bimini head straight for Radio Beach on the crowded North Bimini side, a short water-taxi ride to South Bimini and a walk through the island's sparse scrub leads to Spook Hill Beach — a sheltered cove of astonishing calm and clarity that very few visitors ever discover. Named for the small hill that rises behind it, this beach represents the undiscovered, untouched face of Bimini that old-timers remember.

The water achieves a shade of aquamarine that seems almost artificial: pale, glowing turquoise in the shallows, deepening to cobalt 30 metres from shore. The bottom is white sand and scattered coral rubble, providing ideal habitat for a remarkable diversity of reef fish. Snorkelling from the beach reveals brain coral, sea fans, parrotfish, surgeon fish, and — if you're patient in the early morning — hawksbill sea turtles that forage along the rocky edges.

South Bimini has a single road, no hotels, and fewer than 50 permanent residents. Spook Hill Beach is where those residents swim in the evenings and where the occasional in-the-know visitor experiences Bimini before development arrived on the northern island. Come here if you want Bimini all to yourself — bring everything you need and leave only footprints.