Daily Archives: February 15, 2022

Ambergris Cay offers private beachfront villas available to rent and a full-service resort where all ... [+] food, beverages and activities are included in the daily rate. The six bedroom villa is seen here.

Ambergris Cay, located in the southeastern portion of the Turks and Caicos island chain, is a luxurious private island in the Caribbean unlike any other. It is one of the only private islands in the world that is accessible by private jet. On top of that, Ambergris Cay offers private beachfront villas available to rent and a full-service resort where all food, beverages and activities are included in the daily rate.

Indeed, there are few secluded vacation destinations in the world where one can directly reach by private jet without having to take a second mode of transportation to get there. The ultimate getaway, of course, is spending a holiday in a beachfront home on a private island. But while many private islands offer a luxurious experience, getting to them can be difficult at best.

Book Richard Bransons Necker Island and you will have to first fly to Beef Island Airport and transfer by helicopter. Want to vacation in a villa on The North Island, the same private island in The Seychelles where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge went for their honeymoon? Just like William and Kate, you will have to first take a helicopter transfer from another island (they flew from Mah). Interested in visiting Turtle Island in Fiji? Youll first have to fly to Fijis Nadi Airport then take a seaplane to get there.

Ambergris Cay is one of the only private islands in the world that boasts an airport with a ... [+] 5,700-square-foot-long runway that can accommodate a private jet.

Ambergris Cay, a three mile-long, one-mile wide island in the Turks and Caicos is one of the only private islands in the world that boasts an airport with a 5,700-square-foot-long runway that can accommodate a private jet. No transfers are necessary. Not only can you fly your Gulfstream IV or Cessna Citation to get there directly from such FBOs as Teterboro in New Jersey or Hanscomb Field south of Boston, but it will take less than three hours to do so.

Ambergris Cay can arrange for a customs and immigration official to meet guests who privately fly directly to the island, enabling them to depart the U.S. and avoid having to first land Providenciales International Airport which services the Turks and Caicos islands. Prefer to fly on a commercial flight? There are daily non-stop flights into Providenciales from New York, Miami, Charlotte, and Atlanta, to name a few, and Ambergris Cay will transfer you in one of its own twin engine prop planes. The flight, which is included in the price of the stay, takes only 18 minutes. Land on the Ambergris Cay and you will be greeted with a glass of champagne served in the Welcome Center before you are whisked away to your beachfront suite or villa.

Take a flight from Newark or JFK of just three hours, and you can be on your own private island with ... [+] a spectacular beach.

While it can take an entire day to get to some of the nicest locations in the Caribbean, it is possible to fly out of New York in the morning and be sitting on the beach at Ambergris Cay by lunch. Take a flight from Newark or JFK of just three hours, and you can be on your own private island with a spectacular beach, incredible water and in your own vacation home faster than you can get to most places in the U.S., says Jay Kaminski, an Ambergris Cay homeowner who resides in New Jersey. We arrive on Ambergris with just a backpack and transition so quickly into relaxation. While admittedly biased, I dont believe you can find the same wonderful experience in such a short travel time from the U.S.

Everything is included at Ambergris Cay, from the cocktails served at your chaise lounge chair, to ... [+] the butler service, meals, snacks and 24-hour room service and daily half-hour massages at the spa.

Ambergris Cays all-inclusive experience enables its guests and homeowners to leave their wallet back in the villa. Indeed, everything is included, from the cocktails served at your chaise lounge chair, to the butler service, meals, snacks and 24-hour room service and daily half-hour massages at the spa. Its white-sand beaches are expansive and the turquoise water of the sea is crystal clear and calm. This is a destination for people looking for a tranquil, rustic Caribbean island experience, with all the luxuries and amenities of a five-star resort, says Kevin Matier, Director of Sales and Marketing for Turks and Caicos Collection, which manages Ambergris Cay. It is very true and authentic.

Waterfront villas that offer three, four or six bedrooms, are luxuriously appointed and available to ... [+] rent by the night. Spacious, they range in size from 3,200 square feet to more than 5,000 square feet.

Kaminski, a consultant for early biotech and technology companies, his wife, Julie, a self-employed business owner and doctoral student and their three grown children, visit the island frequently, spending several weeks there most months. The Kaminski family fell in love with the islands simplicity and rustic feel, but appreciate the availability of upscale services and amenities expected from an exclusive resort, says Jay. The uniqueness of the island and location is the unparalleled view of the stars at night, literally zero light pollution, the clear crystal waters and the year around temperature range of roughly 82-84 degrees (what fluctuates is the humidity), he adds.

The Kaminski family also appreciates the undisturbed wildlife on the island, and in particular the cool rock iguanas, and the incredibly friendly people of Turks and Caicos Islands. As soon as you arrive on the Cay your shoulders just drop and you feel relaxed,as if you are the only ones on the island, says Kaminski. It is a true place to unwind, and refuel. The big choice of the day is should we start at the beach and then the pool or reverse the order today.

Ambergris Cay's wildlife includes rock iguanas.

Ambergris Cay is ultra-secure as there is no public access to the island as only staff, registered guests and homeowners are allowed onto the property. It is also extremely private as even during high-season there are relatively few people on the island. No need to ever worry about getting a chaise lounge on the beach or having to wait to take out a paddle boat or kayak or to use one of the tennis courts. The island is very private and the owners (and guests) respect each others privacy tremendously, says Kaminski.

However the island also has a wonderful community around the holidays with gatherings and social events. So you can choose to participate in as much or as little as you like.As my children like to say, its not that there is nothing to do, its that we choose to do nothing which we think is just awesome, Kaminski says. A crowded day at the beach is 15 people.

The six-bedroom villa, seen here, is ideal for families or friends seeking more space and privacy, ... [+] as they are equipped with multiple entertaining areas, both indoors and outdoors, a state-of-the-art kitchen and two swimming pools.

While there are twenty private homes on the island, eight villas are available to rent by the night. These waterfront villas, which offer three, four or six bedrooms, are luxuriously appointed. Spacious, they range in size from 3,200 square feet to more than 5,000 square feet. They are ideal for couples or families seeking more space and privacy, as they are equipped with multiple entertaining areas, both indoors and outdoors, state-of-the-art kitchens furnished with Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances, outdoor Blaze barbecue grilling stations, laundry rooms with full-size washers and dryers, flat-screen HD televisions and high-speed wireless internet. Each villa is also equipped with a heated swimming pool, an outdoor shower, and two electric golf carts for getting around the 1,100-acre island.

Ambergris Cay can arrange for a private chef to prepare meals in your own kitchen. Or, if you prefer ... [+] to do the cooking yourself, you can submit a shopping list and Ambergris Cay will do the grocery shopping. The six bedroom villa is seen here.

A bathroom in the six-bedroom villa is seen here.

Prefer to eat some or all of your meals in the villa? No problem. Ambergris Cay can arrange, for an additional charge, a private chef to prepare meals for you as often as you wish in your own kitchen. Or, if you prefer to do the cooking yourself, you can submit a shopping list and Ambergris Cay will do the grocery shopping for you in Provo and fly your order over on one of its private plans (this convenient service has a modest 15% surcharge of the cost of the order). Of course, you can eat some or all of your meals at Calico, the full-service restaurant on the island or you can opt for your butler to bring you room service.

Ambergris Cay also offers ten luxuriously appointed one-bedroom beachfront suites that are suitable ... [+] for couples or families traveling with small children.

Ambergris Cay also offers ten luxuriously appointed one-bedroom beachfront suites that are suitable for couples or families traveling with small children. Each is equipped with a wet bar, refrigerator stocked with snacks, oversized shower and a plunge pool. Located on a wide beach, they are steps from the water. All accommodations, including the villas and one-bedroom beachfront suites, are equipped with air conditioning, and have access to 24-hour room service, butlers and daily housekeeping.

A full-service restaurant on the island serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. A tiki hut with a full ... [+] service bar serves cocktails day and night.

Currently, Calico is the only full-service restaurant on the island. It serves breakfast, lunch and dinner (additional restaurants are in the works). The dinner menu changes daily, with a wide variety of dishes from which to choose, grilled Caribbean lobster to New York strip steak and fresh ceviche, depending on the catch of the day. Or, should you catch a red snapper or tuna while out fishing, the chef will prepare and serve it to you that same day.

While there is only one restaurant, there are a multiple of venues around the island where meals can be served. You can have a picnic lunch on a nearby sandbar reachable only by boat or you can request an intimate candlelit dinner or a bonfire complete with smores on the beach. Want something not on the menu or have a dietary restriction? No problem. The chef can prepare just about anything you might want, especially if you notify Ambergris Cay ahead of your arrival so the ingredients can be ordered.

Motorized boats take guests out on a fishing and snorkeling expeditions, as well as for waterskiing ... [+] and tubing.

There are many activities to keep you occupied. Motorized boats can take you out on a fishing or snorkeling expedition or for waterskiing or tubing. There are two Har-Tru tennis courts and a new Pickleball court. Miles of trails will take you on adventures around the island, which can be done on foot, or on one of the bicycles or electric mountain bikes owned by Ambergris Cay. A gym is outfitted with exercise equipment and weights and there is an outdoor fitness course. Many additional amenities and restaurant experiences will be added in the months and years to come, and ground will soon break for a new all-glass state-of-the-art 3,000-square-foot fitness facility and yoga studio, with unencumbered views of the ocean.

Ambergris Cay boasts two Har-Tru tennis courts and a new Pickleball court.

A typical day for the Kaminski family is laid back and relaxed. We start with coffee and sunrise, then check email and world news, work out and then eat a light breakfast, says Jay. Then we go to the beach or pool, walk on the beach, eat lunch and then go stand-up paddle boarding or eFoil surfing (surfboard with motor and propeller), go for a mountain bike or e-bike ride, collect sea glass, have a cocktail and watch the sunset, make dinner or grab dinner at the restaurant and then its movie or series timeand the next day, we begin again.

Ambergris Cays Clubhouse is located on a secluded cove. It features a snack bar, pool table, and ... [+] arcade games. Water sports are also offered here, such as paddle boarding and kayaking.

Ambergris Cays Clubhouse is located on a secluded cove. This Adirondack-style lodge has a wrap-around porch with rocking chairs and a ping pong table. Indoors, it features a snack bar, pool table, and arcade games. Theres an adjacent studio stocked with art supplies where children can create arts & crafts. Water sports are also offered here, such as paddle boarding and kayaking. Babysitting services are available for an extra fee. The Clubhouse is staffed from 10am to 5:30pm daily and is also upon request each evening for a beach barbecue or a private event.

Each villa is also equipped with a heated swimming pool, an outdoor shower, and two electric golf ... [+] carts for getting around the 1,100-acre island. The six-bedroom villa is seen here.

There are currently 20 homes on the island and several under construction. The Ambergris Cay development team is selling a limited number of custom- built homes each year. The cost to build a new home starts at $4.5 million while the annual cost to keep it running (utilities, management, membership fee, community fee) is approximately $100,000. As part of the Ambergris Cay membership, residents are given full access to all of the islands amenities plus ten complimentary nights in the beachfront villas which can be transferred to friends or family. Ambergris Cay also manages a rental program for owners who wish to participate.

Ambergris Cay is ultra-secure as there is no public access to the island as only staff, registered ... [+] guests and homeowners are allowed onto the property. The private beach of the six-bedroom villa is seen here.

There are no property, capital gains or income taxes in the Turks and Caicos, which is a British overseas territory. We are not really interested in people using this as an investment vehicle, says Turks and Caicos Collections Matier. We are looking for people who want to be part of a community. An advantage for owners who participate in the rental program is they do not have to keep sending money down to Ambergris Cay to keep it running, says Matier. Everything is taken care of, from daily maid service to keeping the air-conditioning running, he adds. Its a turnkey operation.

The resort's swimming pool is adjacent to a beautiful cove.

The islands full infrastructure includes a reverse osmosis water purification system as well as an independent electrical generation system. A cell tower provides phone and high-speed internet access and there is a fully-staffed fire department. Ambergris Cay employees, as well as construction workers, are housed in dormitories on the island, so there is never a shortage of staff. The staff is vaccinated and the ratio of staff to guests can be as high as two-to-one during slower periods.

There is an infirmary on the island and a hospital where guests can be flown in an emergency situation. The infirmary is able to perform Covid-19 antigen tests, with results available within an hour (these are administered on a complimentary basis for guests who need results for their departure flights).

Ambergris Cay, located in the southeastern portion of the Turks and Caicos island chain, is a ... [+] luxurious private island in the Caribbean unlike any other. It is one of the only private islands in the world that is accessible by private jet.

The all-inclusive rack rate for a one-bedroom beachfront suite (based on double occupancy) is $3,000 per night (seasonal promotions can be seen at this link). Three-bedroom villas start at $6,000 per night while four-bedroom villas, which accommodate eight guests, cost $8,000 per night (villa rates are based on double-occupancy) with an additional $800 daily charge for each guest over the age of 12. Kids who are 12 and under the age stay free and rates are inclusive of service charges and taxes. Ambergris Cay is an ideal location for a destination wedding, bachelorette getaway or a family reunion.

For more information about booking a stay at Ambergris Cay or real estate opportunities, contact this link.

Read more:

Vacation In A Villa On A Private Island In The Caribbean - Forbes

Miranda Vickers had spent the best part of a decade reporting from war-torn Kosovo. As a war correspondent she saw the horrors of war up close. When it was all over and she came back to England, she needed some solace. As a child she'd play for hours on end on a little island in the Thames called Chiswick Eyot.

So, it was there that she begun an epic four-year journey that would see her explore more than a hundred River Thames islands and be the first person to write a book about them.

"I needed to step back and see the world could be quite a beautiful place and it's not all blood and betrayal and misery. The relief of writing this flowed from me. It was a form of escapism," she tells me over coffee not far from her Ealing home.

"Growing up with the river it was always somewhere to gravitate to. It was rather stinky in the '60s and a dead river and nobody swam in it. You were told you would die if you swam in it. But from the age of about seven my mother would take me down to the foreshore at Strand-on-the-Green and we'd have picnics and I'd be rummaging for bits of old treasure.

READ MORE: 'I built my dream home on a private island in the middle of the River Thames'

"Little Chiswick Eyot was on my doorstep. This wonderful little island was so mysterious. It had a little beach and was like a little microcosm of a far away treasure island on our doorstep.

"Every Sunday and weekends, mum used to drive us down there with a little flask and packs of sandwiches and leave us there all day. We'd wade across to the island." Chiswick Eyot just happened to be the last working Osiery on the Thames where people still harvested the long reeds called Osiers that come from willow trees - and wove them into baskets for the London markets. Miranda and her cousin cut them down with penknives and used them to build dens.

"We'd stand on the prow of the island like it was a boat and smoke our cigarettes - bearing in mind we were ten or 11 years old, we used to buy them and kept our secret supply in our camp," laughs Miranda. "We used to swim off the tiny beach on the far side of the island. You could swim quite far out into the river until you reached a terribly dangerous current which could literally suck you in.

"The smell of Thames mud in the back of my mum's car when she came to pick us up is one of those things that still sticks in my memory. It was the most idyllic time like Swallows and Amazons. We bunked off school - I hated my Conservative Catholic girls' convent.

"My single mum couldn't keep that much of an eye on me, I was a bit of a rebel. It was an element of freedom that I don't think sadly many kids get today. I mean who would leave two little girls of eight, nine or ten alone for a whole day?

"We had to be inventive. We had penknives and we cut the osiers and made a bivouac and covered it in moss to make it waterproof and we'd hunker down in it and watch for the 'Americans' coming.

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"At the end of the summer were were sun burnt brown and our bare feet were tough as anything. Covered in mud at the end of the day, the bath water would be black and our clothes used to stink," Miranda shrugs.

"We got rescued a couple of times when the tide came up by the riverboat police. But they were forever rescuing kids as they were everywhere along the river banks in those days." This was a time of course when the Thames was a working river and was still very dirty, being used constantly by barges and lighters.

Inspired by her return to Chiswick Eyot, Miranda started writing an article for the Ealing Historical Association about it and her interest was reignited. She soon started exploring more islands and her publishers were massively interested. The only catch was they wanted her to explore all 92 of them!

It took Miranda four-and-a-half years to reach all the islands! She bought a little inflatable motor boat with her husband and in summer they would explore together. Mooring up, her husband would often listen to the cricket on the radio while Miranda stomped about on the islands, measuring them, observing and meeting locals.

In the winter she would beaver away in library archives finding out as much as she could about the islands. By the second year she'd found 120 islands existed! Most of them were hardly known apart from the celebrated Eel Pie island where rock stars used to hang out.

The epic voyage started at Leigh-on-Sea at Canvey Island.

Miranda says: "It's one of the most maligned places in the UK but I loved it. I absolutely found it fascinating. I rang the Essex Tourist board and asked if they had any nice places to stay on Canvey Island and they burst out laughing!"

There were no more islands between here and Chiswick Eyot so the voyage resumed on Miranda's childhood haunt. Any islands further towards London had long since been eroded by the Thames tides, but the islands from Chiswick Eyot upstream had survived.

The voyage took the couple right out into Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire all the way to Lechlade, the official source of the Thames. "I met fascinating people and I discovered beaches and micro ecosystems. Various islands like Isleworth Ait have very rare mollusks on for example.," says Miranda. "The whole process made me realise that although there are other rivers in the world with islands, it's only on the Thames where they are little oasis of life.

"People say when they cross to the islands by ferry or boat or bridges they feel a weight has left their shoulders. The whole sort of romantic idea of islands is encapsulated in these little worlds."

Miranda's husband also warmed to the task as the voyage went on and eventually would enjoy swimming and picnicking.

"It brought us together," she says, half laughing!

Some of the islands are privately owned and there are strict conservation rules in place to stop them being eroded continually. But they are actually constantly in danger, not just from being flooded but from Mitten crabs which eat away at the earth, causing the soil to collapse. "There's lots of new species that have been introduced into the river over the last 20 or 30 years that are non-native and are invasive and are causing quite a lot of problems on the islands," says Miranda.

"They come in on the hulls of great trawlers from all over the world. Mitten crabs are especially attacking Chiswick Eyot and there's a programme to stop them by putting concrete base around part of the island."

The willow trees can also grow up to 70ft and have to be maintained so they don't fall into the river. But there's plenty of good reasons for preserving them. "I think people gravitate to islands. Look at Greece. Islands are a magnet. It's that sense of isolation and escapism. Stepping into another little world. In times of insecurity they become a refuge," says Miranda.

Miranda's favourite island is Platt's Eyot because it's the tallest in the river and "you have walk up a hill to a beautiful meadow covered in oxide daisies, wildflowers and poppies and you look down the cliff into the water. How long it will remain like that I don't know because developers are hovering around."

She adds: "The number of boatyards is diminishing rapidly and there's so much development. Time will tell if they build a residential block on it. They say they will resurrect the boat yard but what that really will look like we don't know.

"There have been two very mysterious fires and no-one'es ever been prosecuted. It's obvious who is behind it. The River Thames is a working river not the residential housing estate that it's becoming. That's the crisis the river is facing. Developers can add another 20-30,000 onto a flat if it's got a river view."

It's clear from talking to Miranda that the islands must be cherished and preserved. As she explains so passionately, they offer us somewhere we can return to nature and the natural rhythms of life, and in a world which is becoming madder day by day, this has to be worth fighting for.

Miranda's book Eyots and Aits, Islands of the River Thames is available here

Do you have a fascinating story or memories from the River Thames? Email martin.elvery@Reachplc.com

Read the original post:

'I played on a River Thames island as a kid, now I've explored over 100 islands' - My London