PRIVACY PLEASE

For nearly a century, Guana Island has drawn jet-setters seeking sun, solitude, and an ethos centred on the environment long before it was a trend. As the Caribbean slowly reopens, Heidi Mitchell dips her toes in the balmy waters of this singular tropical retreat.

- Heidi Mitchell

BETWEEN US, my friend Camila and I own 26 headlamps. I know this because we tallied them as we stumbled in a race against the setting sun down Sugarloaf Mountain, the highest point on Guana Island—the dramatically lush British Virgin Island resort that seems practically flung into the Caribbean Sea. We cursed ourselves as we stepped through giant spiderwebs and danced around skull-size hermit crabs while the crescent moon became our only source of light. We cursed because all those headlamps we own remained back home in our camping kits. It never occurred to us to pack them. Who would have thought one could get lost in the dark on an 850-acre island whose highest peak is a mere 242 meters? And anyway, who would consider strapping on a headlamp at a resort where dressing up for dinner is de rigueur, and where Nobel laureates, prime ministers, and members of Hollywood royalty are your companions at the nightly cocktail hour?

We shouldn’t have worried about appearances, since it turned out none of those luminaries would be at our very, very private cocktail hours. In order to protect its 30,000 residents against the coronavirus, the British Virgin Islands closed the borders in March of 2020. Although the government reopened them in December, there were strict protocols in place when I visited in January, including proof of a negative test before arrival, and two tests once there—one upon landing, and another a few days later.