Île Fourchue, chartered — the day the island is lived from the water

Île Fourchue is the uninhabited island off St Barts' northwest — a horseshoe of volcanic hills around a still bay, reached only by boat, empty but for a few moorings. It is the finest day-charter the island offers, and it has a right hour: mid-morning, when the water is glassy and the light not yet vertical, before the handful of other boats arrive.

We charter it as a composed day, not an excursion. A private boat, the chef aboard with a lunch built from the morning market, snorkelling in a bay where the fish still trust the water, and the crossing timed to the swell — from May to November, when the sea lies flat. On the return, the light goes gold over Colombier. It is the kind of day people describe for years afterward without quite explaining why. Our task is to make it seem effortless, which is the whole of the craft.