The Bahamas: Fantasy island

Off to the Bahamas? Nassau is so last century, darling. The latest luxury hideaway for the super rich is Musha, where even the sea is out of bounds to the hoi polloi. Rory Ross finds out how the other half holidays

A phalanx of white-uniformed staff greeted my twin-engined Otter as it touched down at Musha Cay in the Exuma islands. A tanned, good-looking man stepped forward and shook my hand with a powerful Vietnam veteran's grip. "Tom Lawson. Great to see you. Pleasant flight?" Relatively crash-free. I took in the scenery of swaying palms, iridescent turquoise sea and luggage being yomped from plane to speedboat. Ah yes, this is moi kind of island.

Exuma sounds like a nasty throat complaint. In fact it refers to a cluster of cays in the Bahamas that run from New Providence island south towards to the Turks & Caicos Islands like giant stepping-stones. The Bahamas have long been the resort of the rich and famous, chiefly for their pristine soul-nurturing qualities and friendly welcome. Now that Nassau is traffic-clogged, people are casting towards the outer islands, the most beautiful of which are the Exumas. And the most beautiful Exuma is Musha.

Billed "the most luxurious private island in the world", Musha belongs to John Melk, Chicago-based co-founder of Blockbuster Video. In 1995, Melk forked out $5m for what was then a 150-acre lump of arid low-lying scrub. He budgeted $400,000 to build a villa, but soon twigged that one villa alone wasn't enough to house family and friends, so carried on building. Five villas, one house, one swimming pool and one state-of-the-art triplicated hurricane-proof island infrastructure later, Melk gave up counting the beans after he'd spent $50m.

Tom Lawson, with his glamorous wife Susan, built and runs Musha on behalf of Mr Melk, while pandering to the whims and egos of clients and guests. They took me on a tour, flinging open doors and pointing out landmarks. The overriding specification is expensive and beautiful. Each of Musha's exquisite villas is designed in Caribbean colonial style and built in Mexican limestone and mahogany. The interiors tastefully embrace the antique, the ethnic and the space-age. Every 10 paces, you'll find a bar or a bathroom. "Suffering is not allowed here," says Susan Lawson.

Each villa is folded in manicured gardens ablaze with tropical flowers – think DayGlo but without the understatement – planted in soil shipped by the ton from Florida, along with some 1,000 transplanted palm trees. "Either I'm going to wake up soon," I thought, "or I've died and gone to the Bahamas."

Mr Melk rents out Musha at £22,000 per day. Most people who can afford to pay £1 for every four seconds of their holiday probably got to be that rich by being too mean to blow half a million on a week's sun-bathing. Yet Musha is no more expensive than Sir Donald Gosling's hideous 70m charter yacht, Leander. "This is a 150-acre yacht, moored in the most beautiful spot in the world," reasons Lawson.

Nothing is too much trouble. One client wanted to play badminton. So they built a badminton court. Another client sent over a "child proofer" to render the island harmless even to the most determinedly self-destructive sprog. All potential hazards were smothered in Plexiglas, except the child.

The British Crown owned Exuma until George III deeded the islands to Loyalist plantation owners during the American War of Independence. The planters grew sisal and cotton, and flooded plains to produce salt. But poor – or no – soil combined with the Napoleonic Wars thwarted them. Some owners simply upped and left, leaving their slaves behind.

Sponge harvesting and later rum-smuggling revived the local economy. Drug-running took over in the Sixties and Seventies, until the Bahamian and US governments stamped the trade out, paving the way for banking, and now tourism. One of the biggest tourist draws is fishing. There are three types: bone fishing, where you stand in shallow waters and stalk these silvery translucent fish that will take 200 yards off your line; reef fishing, where you remain stationary in a boat, bait the water and wait for snapper and grouper to swim by; and deep-water fishing, the macho Hemingway-esque hunt for tuna, yellow fin, wahoo and mahi mahi, where you "troll" (ply slowly up and down) with baited lines. This is what you do off Musha.

At 5am, during the "grey dawn", we boarded Musha's immaculate yacht and surged off. "You see those islands?" Mr Lawson pointed to a ring of islets that protect Musha. "We own them all. The basin here is banned to other yachts. You have total privacy."

The Exuma chain is formed by the summits of an underwater mountain range. Just offshore, the seabed slopes downward, then plunges vertically for several thousand feet. "The biggest fish hug the 'drop-off'," says Mr Lawson. As we baited our lines and began trolling, the sun peeped over the horizon while Mr Lawson passed the time with tales of Musha's dazzling clientele, whoppers in the celebrity fish pond. They split into Hollywood stars who want copper-bottomed privacy to copper their bottoms, and tycoons who own or run household brand names. Their chief concern is not so much weather and views as security. "There is no violent crime here," says Mr Lawson. "Exuma has one police cell. The US drug enforcement agency has eight helicopters flying up and down day and night. There's nowhere more private. Buying an island here is like buying your own country. Some owners get silly and even have their own money and flag."

So Musha is not really a "yacht" so much as an ark against whatever loony conspiracy theory of world catastrophe, civil meltdown and media intrusion you care to choose from. And, of course, it has triggered the very thing that it is meant to insure against. A few weeks ago, someone put out a rumour that Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz were about to marry on Musha. The hack pack duly descended on Nassau, only to be turned away by immigration officials. The whole of the Bahamas had been shut down.

"What further confused the paparazzi," says Mr Lawson, "is that my name is Tom too. A photographer got hold of my sister in Florida and asked, 'Is Tom on the island?' She replied, 'Sure. Tom's always on the island.' Ha-ha. In fact, we had bigger celebrities than Cruise staying here at the time." Aren't they all?

By now the sun was rising high. Fish feed when the sun is low. Time was running out. On cue, some 150 feet astern, a fish thrashed the water. "Barracuda!" The grim-jawed barracuda is a local delicacy, although it can induce something called ciguatera poisoning. The landed toothy predator was swiftly locked away in a small hatch. "You don't want to go near those teeth," said Mr Lawson. There are stories of barracuda lunging at fishermen and ripping out flesh. With the barracuda safely suffocating, I enquired about the appeal of fishing. "Tranquillity," mused Mr Lawson. "Escapism."

I discovered that the fish are into escapism too. A few minutes later, a hooked wahoo rose and flexed wildly. The captain thrust me a rod. Following the fishing manual to the letter, I pulled the rod up in order to turn the head of the wahoo to face the boat, and lowered the rod as I reeled it in, the idea being to get the fish to swim towards me. After about five minutes, I'd brought the wahoo to within a few feet. It was at least four feet long. Make that six. Okay, three. As a hungry reception committee stood poised with fish hooks, I was salivating at the thought of grilled wahoo with a squeeze of lemon, when – ping! – the line snapped. "It happens," philosophised the captain, trying to break off my shoulder. "You did nothing wrong."

On we churned. Most of the 365 Exumas have already been snapped up. "You cannot touch an island here for less than $1m," says Mr Lawson. "Buying is the cheapest part. You also have to escrow money to develop it..."

A third fish leapt from the ocean. "Mahi mahi," drawled the captain, coolly handing me a rod. "You mean 'lunch'," I thought. Mahi mahi, aka "dorado", is the most delicious fish. As I reeled lunch alongside, my taste buds were screaming in anticipation of mahi mahi steaks baked with lemon grass and fennel, rinsed down with a lightly chilled chardonnay... when lunch wriggled free.

To lose one fish is unlucky; to lose two is hilarious for everyone else. "That's why it's called 'fishing' not 'catching'," laughed one of the party. "Funny isn't it that you have a brand of frozen fish named after you?" pointed out another. "Ross Frozen Foods. Open the packet and... hey, where's the fish?"

Ashore, I saw no advantage in minimising the scale of my disappointment, and duly promoted the four-foot wahoo to a seven-foot monster with whom I grappled fully for 30 minutes until finally let down by faulty tackle. That's what I call escapism.

Traveller's Guide

When to go: The Bahamas are warm and humid all year, with the highest temperatures between June and October. To avoid the worst of the rains and storms, travel before May or after November.

Getting there: British Airways (0845 77 333 77, www.ba.com) flies five times a week between London Heathrow and Nassau, for an economy fare of around £580 return. The lowest Club World fare is £2,089 return.

Staying there: Seven nights at Musha Cay for 24 people sharing the island on an exclusive and all-inclusive basis including private charter flights between Nassau and Musha costs £6,775 per person.

More information: Bahamas Tourist Office, 10 Chesterfield Street, London W1J 5JL (020-7355 0800, www.bahamas.co.uk). Musha Cay's UK agent is Roxton Bailey Robinson (01488 689700, www.rbrww.com).