On the island of Providencia, it is impossible not to dig your toes into the beach and sigh. This tiny South American corner of the Caribbean Sea is not overrun with five-star resorts or trendy beachfront cocktail bars. What it has in sand buckets full, is pure undiluted pleasure.
A province of Colombia, more then 8,900km north of the mainland, the islanders here speak English, not Spanish, and proudly hold on to a culture that takes little influence from its Latin American allegiance.
Despite expert divers raving about its high visibility waters, the island welcomes only a handful of visitors each year. Those that come are mostly content to explore near-deserted beaches and eat fresh Creole fish straight from the sea.
But for those visitors who like their paradise dipped in adrenalin, there is plenty on offer. The barrier reef here is the third-largest in the world, after Australia and Belize, and since being declared a Unesco Seaflower Biosphere Reserve in 2000, it also one of the best preserved.
At Blue Hole - a dive site a few minutes offshore - we descended into a vast wall of delicately intricate coral. Blue parrotfish circled waving green sea fans, purple lobster claws poked from clusters of yellow fire tubes, a grey shark swims cautiously below. We could have happily grown fins and stayed forever.
But the underwater show is not just for the scuba-certified; with water this calm and clear all you need to do is jump in - especially in McBean Lagoon, the island's marine national park and undisputed snorkelling capital of the region. In its centre is Crab Caye - a miniature palm-dotted islet that would make even Robinson Crusoe salivate with desert-island fantasies. But within minutes of diving in, we were sharing water with shy sea turtles and industrious manta rays.
But though the water is hard to leave, the interior of the island is crossed with rainforest trails that are equally compelling. On our last day, we hiked to the 300-metre high point of the island with farmer and guide Mike Hawkins Bryan. We passed tall angular cotton trees and wild orchards dripping with tamarind, orange and mango buds. On the summit, we foraged off-trail for fallen coconuts, Bryan slicing the ends off with his machete so we could drink the juice and gnaw on the hard rich fruit inside.