With more years than I care to mention in this job, it takes something very special to leave me speechless, but recently, it took nothing more than a patch of sand.
The day was as beautiful and scorching as hundreds of others in the Indian Ocean. But on this particular afternoon, we hopped from the large yacht that had carried our group excitedly from the jetty onto a tiny wooden boat with little more than an engine. We pootled off into what seemed to be the middle of nowhere, only to be rewarded minutes later with a sandspit in a lagoon the word turquoise could have been invented for.
Deposited on the beach, I tried to soak up the scene – the pure white of the sand, the colours in the water, the fact that sun loungers had been carved out of the sand and the mirage of three men from the resort waiting for us with chilled champagne. Settled into our sand ‘chairs’, shaded by umbrellas, we were served a healthy lunch in bento boxes. It was sheer bliss.
