Daniel's Head Village is a breath of radical air in Bermuda, a world away from the island's typical, cruise ship-style hotels offering formal afternoon tea and leather-bound wine lists. Still a British dependency, the island has strong colonial traces (red pillar boxes, portraits of the Queen). So when DHV opened last year - with no formal dress codes, no cocktail lounge, no cabarets and no televisions - some people viewed it as verging on bohemian.
The site, a former Canadian military base at the island's south-western tip, is a 20-acre rocky peninsula with stunning views, creamy pink beaches and coral waters. Guests stay in nothing so conventional as a room. Dotted around are pastel "tent cottages", built on stilts with double-skinned plastic (acrylic) walls stretched over aluminium frames (strong enough, I was assured, to withstand 90mph winds). I awoke to the sound of rain on the roof only to realise it was the surf gently crashing on the rocks beneath my floor.
Simply but comfortably furnished, all materials - decking floors, acrylic, aluminium - are recyclable. Electricity and hot water are part solar-powered, sewage is treated by environmentally friendly enzymes while water is reclaimed rainwater, supplemented with a reverse osmosis (seawater conversion) plant. No radios or vehicles are allowed on site - transport is by electric buggy - and smoking is discouraged. The cottage stilts not only ensure little damage to the ground but give privacy and uninterrupted views, while those built over the water enjoy an almost Robinson Crusoe-like isolation.
Over breakfast on the veranda of the former military "mess hall" - definite feeling of being on the set of White Mischief - copies of the Daniel's Head Village Voice described the "daily activities": snorkel trails and botanical tours, photographic safaris and kayaking trips, cycle rides and scuba expeditions. Naturally, all are environmentally sympathetic - there are no motorised sports and everything is powered by nature or people - but possibly, I worried, a tad earnest.
I signed up for a nature trail and prepared for a worthy bit of eco-evangelising. But a walk with Graeme Outerbridge, a photographer and ecologist with more than a passing resemblance to Clint Eastwood - and who traces his family back to some of the first 17th-century English settlers - was anything but a dull ramble. I could scarcely keep up as he pointed out the bright yellow-breasted kiskadee birds - so-called because their cry sounds like " Qu'est que c'est? " - showed me how to extract aloe vera juice from the plant's leaves, pointed out the handsome Bermuda cedar, 95% of which were wiped out in the 1950s by a scale insect and which are now slowly being reintroduced, and explained how to cook the traditional Bermudian Sunday breakfast of salted codfish, eggs, bananas, avocado and potatoes. And did I know butterfly fish mate for life? Or that the cereus - a fabulously lush and sensual white flower - blooms for one night only and is given by lovers to their girlfriends? I also learned that there are five rare bluebirds on site plus a small colony of skinks, the Bermuda rock lizard, decimated after the island was colonised but now making a comeback.
On a snorkelling trip, we saw gorgeously coloured parrotfish, lobsters, trigger fish, blue tang and swarms of angelfish. "There's one dominant male and he swims between his harems," said Graeme. Sadly, we didn't see the green turtles although Graeme hopes that the resort's proposed marine park - currently awaiting the go-ahead from the government - will encourage them to stay in the area.
None of the activities are compulsory. You can be as lazy as you like and no one bats an eyelid. On some days, I set myself no more strenuous a task than learning to slide in and out of a hammock with dignity. On others, I checked off all 10 of the resort's tiny, private beaches, many of them empty.
When I began to feel cut off from the rest of the world, I strolled to nearby Somerset Village, past dreamily named roads such as Spice Lily Lane, Pink House Lane, Tween Walls, and hedgerows of oleander and hibiscus, the crazy match-me-if-you-can tree and delicate wildflowering Bermudiana - all of which I could now confidently identify after a morning ramble with local botanical illustrator Christine Watlington.
The village, no more than a mile away, took a good half-hour to reach. You get nowhere fast on Bermuda; everyone greets you and it's considered the height of rudeness not to respond. Mr Bailey, at the mechanical store, wanted to know where I was staying; long-bearded Kenny wanted to recite poetry to me, and the swaying-hipped Marianne, in response to my asking how she was, answered: "I'm getting fat. Plenty of good loving!"
After dinner that evening (eat on the veranda or cook your own barbecue among the palms), I star-gazed from a gently rocking hammock. Below me, the surf crashed; around me the whistling tree frogs piped, and above me the clouds shimmered in the moonlight. It was nature's own evening cabaret.
Way to go
Getting there: Caribtours (020-7751 0660) offers seven nights' B&B at Daniel's Head Village from £912pp, including flights and transfers. Other operators offering holidays in Bermuda include Hayes & Jarvis (0870 8989890), Harlequin Holidays (01708 850330) and Pearls of the Ocean (020-7932 0108).
Further information: Bermuda Tourism, 020-8410 8188. Time difference: GMT -4hrs. Country code: 001 441. Flight time from London: 7hrs. Currency: £1 = 1.42 dollars.
