With the wind in your sails you can go anywhere. That’s how it felt as I hauled the tiller toward me, turned the boat into the fresh northerly breeze, watched the air fill the canvas and pulled the rigging taut. The sibilant sound of the water sluicing along the hull signaled our increasing speed. Dollops of spray flicked back in our faces. The breeze, its intensity doubled by our forward progress, salted our tongues.

Cayo Espanto slowly shrank behind us, and we set off on a lifetime-memory version of a lunch date. Ahead lay a deserted tropical beach lined with ivory sand, storm-borne shells and breeze-blown palms. We’d have the beach all to ourselves, as long as we’d like, while the light lasted. Behind was our secluded villa, with the bedroom facing the beach, the outdoor shower in the garden. The villa was ours for just a week, but oh what a week it was.

“How far should we go?” I asked my first mate and boon companion.

Leslie trained an eye on the horizon. “How far is Tahiti?”

Our villa, with its private dock and plunge pool, lent itself to complete relaxation.

Well, quite far, actually—we were in Belize, at the Caribbean’s western verge, savoring the fourth day of a week on a private island resort and sailing, as it happens, the opposite direction from Tahiti.

Our destination was a small deserted cove that the resort staff had said would be about an hour away. Go past the first two bays, round a small point, then another, then pull into the next bay.

Cayo Espanto is one among several dozen such resorts worldwide in which guests enjoy lavish attention, unimpinged privacy, gloriously deluxe surroundings and sensational food.

They are almost all not only exclusive but expensive—I dare not say what we paid for our week at Cayo because, frankly, it takes my breath away. Not that I have any buyer’s remorse: It was our honeymoon and, in the words of a long-ago ad for over-the-top TVs, darn well worth it.

The day we sailed to our private beach for lunch we set out on the resort’s Hobie Cat clad in swimsuits and T-shirts, taking along two towels and an icebox with our lunch inside. Not just any lunch, mind you: no tuna sandwiches here.

Once we rounded that last point an hour later and coasted into our deserted sand strand, and baked a while in the sun, and sluiced spray and sand off with a splash in the bay, we lifted the lid on the icebox to find a fresh salad. Not just any salad, mind you: a Caesar, with fresh shrimp. Also a pasta-seafood salad, a fresh fruit platter and two pieces of chocolate-almond flourless torte.

“We’re wondering if the food is living up to your expectations,” the resort chef had asked that morning on her daily visit to discuss our menu. That’s when I’d asked for the chocolate torte in the lunchbox — it had been our dessert the night before, and was indisputably the best chocolate dish either Leslie or I ever had.