The Bahamas by Maureen Barry

The 700-plus islands that make up the Bahamas are set in a sea of scintillating turquoise, where the sand runs the gamut from bleached white through rich ivory to pale blush pink. Their attraction for holidaymakers spans the casinos, golf, glitz and nightlife of Nassau on New Providence Island and Freeport on Grand Bahama island to the 'gone fishin' mentality of the delightfully named Family Islands (or Out Islands as they’re known locally). There, the most noise you’re likely to hear is the scrape of fishing nets on sand or the occasional thud of a coconut announcing the arrival of an instant cooling drink.

The Bahamas have their honeymoon hideaways but they can also be a good choice for a family holiday, and one place the kids will fall for is Paradise Island, just across the bridge from downtown Nassau, only 12 miles from the airport. It is here that Sol Kerzner’s Sun International hotel company has recently invested millions of dollars in ‘Atlantis’ - one of the world’s most spectacular resorts. In Africa I had already marvelled at the drama of Sol’s Lost City at Bophutatswana, and thought it would be a hard act to follow, but both my teenage son and I were enthralled by the 14-acre Waterscape Park at Atlantis.

Everywhere around us water flowed, shimmered and cascaded as we swam at Paradise lagoon, voyeurs to shoals of multicoloured fish, then plunged into one of five free-form pools. We splashed under a symphony of 40 waterfalls and - my favourite - floated on a rubber tube along the quarter-mile lazy river ride. It was spooky to walk through the transparent 100-foot underwater tunnel for close inspection of the sharks, stingrays and barracudas and stroll through glass-walled grottos for eye-to-eye contact with a hundred or more species of tropical fish.

For me, the biggest dilemnas of the day were deciding from which bar to watch the stunning Bahamian sunsets and which of the 12 themed restaurants we should try for dinner. Part of the appeal of little Paradise Island is its proximity to Nassau’s shops and sights. The Bahamas’ capital, with its large, sheltered harbour, has swung many times from boomtown to backwater and back again in its rather raffish past. Young people from the Family Islands have traditionally come to Nassau looking for the big time, and you can boast a worldly sophistication if you were born on New Providence. For many visitors, Nassau is the Bahamas and although it was once a sleepy place it is now an expanding city, where the pace is more hectic than relaxed and traffic blocks the narrow streets - driving on the left.

You can walk around the downtown area to see the sights but another way of seeing the contrasts is from the seat of a horse-drawn surrey - with or without the fringe on top. The city retains some of its colonial architecture and in front of the pastel-coloured, colonnaded buildings of Parliament Square, Queen Victoria’s statue casts a beady eye over modern Nassau. Bay Street’s shops occupy fine period buildings and tempt cruise ship visitors with their displays of duty free china, crystal, cashmere and perfume.

I’m a market freak and found plenty to intrigue me at the straw market on Bay Street. It’s a tough life but a lucrative one for the feisty Bahamian women who hold court there, always ready for a quip with the customer.

From Nassau, you can travel to the other islands on regular scheduled flights by Bahamas Air, the national airline, but I chose to travel from Nassau to the Out Islands by mailboat, sharing deck space with farm animals and pineapples.

Thanks to the Gulf Stream’s clear warm waters (mid to high 20s degrees centigrade all year round) and balmy south eastern tradewinds, Bahamian temperatures rarely drop below 16°C or rise above 32°C. You’ll get summer rain showers usually brief and refreshing - when the lush greenery gives out tantalising scents of exotic flora and spices. December to April is high season, prices tend to be lower in summer; and bear in mind that autumn can be the time for hurricanes.

The name Bimini (there are in fact two Biminis north and south) has long stood for one thing, a sport immortalised by Ernest Hemingway, big game fishing. Among Ernest’s catches was a 233kg tuna, the stuff that angling legends are made of. Bimini waters also lure snorkellers and scuba divers to view the stone formations that some believe are the lost city of Atlantis.

The Abacos are a group of islands and cays stretching across 30 miles of shallow sparkling water. The red and white striped lighthouse at Hope Town is still hand-powered and fuelled by kerosene, and outside the brightly painted houses of Green Turtle Cay boatbuilders employ the same skills their forefathers did 200 years ago. The main town, March Harbour, has its own airport and - wonder of wonders - the island’s only traffic light. I found it easy to hire a small boat and explore the Abacos, dropping anchor at tiny cays and feeling like a latter-day Columbus.

In the past it was so tough to scratch a livelihood from the meagre coral soil that most Bahamians relied on the salvaging of wrecked ships; thousands of vessels sank among the treacherous Out Islands reefs. Wrecking before the ship was in trouble, better known as piracy, was big business for rogues like Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard) and the notorious Mary Read and Anne Bonny.

Piracy against the ships of a hostile nation was perfectly legal - privateering, as it was called, was a lucrative industry. Some sunken Spanish galleons, still laden with gold, lie undiscovered to this day.

Conveniently for scuba divers, Andros, the largest Island in the Bahamas, sits on the edge of the fathomless depths of the 'Tongue of the Ocean' and the Andros Barrier Reef gives divers an impressive variety of underwater adventures. Andros is luscious on land, too. Rare orchids bloom in the island’s interior and the game season from September to March brings hunters to the forests looking for duck, pigeon, and partridge. Andros’ flats make it the 'bone fishing capital of the world'.

Three centuries ago, English settlers escaping religious persecution established a colony on Eleuthera, the island given the Greek name for 'freedom'.

Eleuthera has magnificent white beaches and it takes little effort to walk the one-mile from one side to the other before finding your own private cove for a swim in dark blue-green waters. Charming, not-too-expensive inns hug the coastline alongside glamorous hotels where American superstars seek sun and seclusion.

This island also has one traffic light - hardly necessary and indicative of the languid pace. As well as sea sports there’s tennis and a golf course, and you can take the ferry to one of the Bahamas’ little secrets - exquisite Harbour Island with its powdery pink beaches and pretty 18th century houses covered in flowers. Another ferry will take you on to Spanish Wells, sleepy and picturesque, where a pirate or two wouldn’t look out of place.

In the Exuma chain, the locals will tell you there are 365 islands, one for each day of the year. And if you ask a local his or her name, chances are it will be Rolle. Half the islanders bear this name, descendants of the slaves owned by the Rolle family - who gave the land to the people after emancipation.

If you take time to explore the smaller Family Islands, chances are that the Bahamas’ welcome turns into total seduction. As Columbus is supposed to have said: "Even the singing of the birds is such that a man could never wish to leave this place."