Andros

Andros is bigger than all the other Bahamian islands put together and holds fewer than eight thousand people, most of them along the eastern shore. It is really three islands separated by tidal creeks, with a vast interior of pine forest, mangrove and wetland that almost nobody enters. Along the eastern edge runs the Andros Barrier Reef, generally reckoned the third largest barrier reef in the world, with the Tongue of the Ocean dropping to more than a kilometre and a half just beyond it. The western side is flats: hundreds of square kilometres of shallow water that make Andros one of the world's premier bonefishing destinations.

What you actually see

• The barrier reef - generally reckoned the third largest in the world, running along the east coast.
• The Tongue of the Ocean - a drop to over 1,500 metres just offshore.
• Bonefishing flats - vast shallow water on the western side.
• Blue holes - hundreds of them; the inland freshwater holes in the pine forest are swimmable, the ocean holes are technical dives.

When to go

December to May is the dry season. Bonefishing is good year-round with the best conditions in spring and autumn. Diving on the reef and blue holes is best in the calm winter months. Mosquitoes and sandflies in the interior are severe from summer onward.

Honest expectations

Andros has almost no roads across it and travel between the three main sections often means flying or taking a boat; the airports are far apart and picking the wrong one adds hours. Accommodation is mostly fishing lodges at high prices. Sandflies and mosquitoes are genuinely bad. Blue hole diving is technical and several are for trained cave divers only.

Nearby

Nassau is a twenty-minute flight east; the Berry Islands are north.