As you step off your small, light aircraft, you are met by the management and immediately whisked to your own private cottage. Dense with scenic palms, takamaka and casuarina trees, the 375-acre Denis Island is ringed by beautiful soft sandy beaches and the bluest and clearest seas. It offers excellent watersports and safe sea swimming in a calm lagoon. It’s also great for snorkelling, with a sea turtle sanctuary, and has excellent birdlife.

Owned and run by the Mason family, it’s comfortable, with a rustic, relaxed charm and a farm to table culinary concept. They cure their own meats, produce fresh eggs, make cheeses and grow organic vegetables on the island, so the food is wholesome, and very good, with cosmopolitan cuisine and delicious Creole specialties by Chef Fabrice. There’s one bar and restaurant, where a musician plays at dinner.

Guests are accommodated in one of 23 elegant air-conditioned cottages and two larger luxury cottages for families, where you can step straight onto the beach. The cottages have wide verandas, as well as a private courtyard with ‘outside’ garden shower and bicycles are provided for pottering about. You can only take 15kg of luggage with you to this private paradise, as you share the plane with the supplies!

Susie suggests:

• Take a bicycle around the island, stopping at the farm which has pigs, hens, sheep and goats.
• Arrange a massage at your cottage which can either be taken outside or inside.
• There’s a strict luggage allowance of 15kg, but Denis Island offers a free laundry service.