What is it about a small body of land surrounded by the bluest of ocean that seems to change the nature of time? We tend to live our days and nights in chopped up, numbered increments, counting down to nothing in particular. But spend a few days on an island, and the concept of hours, minutes and seconds begins to feel vague and elusive, like some long ago memory we’d rather forget.

I buried my useless watch deep in my suitcase recently during a trip to Eleuthera, Bahamas, a 110-mile long, 2-mile wide strip of lush forests, ancient black rock and pristine white and pink beaches. I’m not sure if I would have experienced the same sense of time on a trip to thriving Nassau or Grand Bahama, but Eleuthera, with a population of less than 10,000 and a lack of large resorts, allows travelers to easily melt into days governed only by sunrises and sunsets.

I was traveling with family to visit my cousin, Al Curry, and his wife, Janice. Both are Houstonians who, on vacation five years ago, fell in love with Eleuthera and later bought a house to spend their semi-retirement balancing months of Houston bustle with months of island life. Semi-retirement didn’t take for very long though, and a year ago Al bought a diving and sport-fishing business, Ocean Fox Cotton Bay, and now spends his days showing tourists some of the most beautiful spots of Eleuthera — those places under the waves.

Within a few hours of landing at Governor’s Harbour Airport, I realized that though it’s metaphorically easy to get lost in Eleuthera, it’s quite difficult to get actually lost on Eleuthera. The only major thoroughfare, the two-lane paved Queen’s Highway, runs the length of the whole island. Take pretty much any road, paved or gravel, off the Queen’s Highway and sooner or later drivers will hit water. Chances are, they’ll also find a beautiful, deserted beach they can claim as their own for the day.

Renting a car can be an expensive, but it’s worth it if visitors really want to explore the island. The best guide to the beaches is simply to ask a Bahaman or ex-pat for their favorite or rely on Google Earth and a sense of adventure. The only real challenge would be to look for an ugly or populous beach.

With Janice and Al as our guides, we averaged about two new beaches a day. Some of the beaches we visited had official names, but others we named ourselves in honor of whatever we found there — sea fan beach, conch shells beach and sea glass beach, to name a few.

One of my instant favorite beaches, which the Currys call Jurassic Park beach, lies on abandoned U.S Naval Facility land. Rusting structures remain on the base, which was decommissioned more than 30 years ago, but they now house invading trees and flowering plants instead of officers and enlisted men. We didn’t find an dinosaurs lurking in the bushes, but we did find dolphins having lunch in the water. After they finished their meal, the dolphins stayed to play, zig zagging close and then away, swimming less than ten feet away as they made circles around us.

On most beach excursions we brought snorkel equipment as the island is ringed by coral reefs, and while the most spectacular ones are reached by boat, smaller but beautiful reefs can be seen with a short swim from the beach. The reefs are also good places to try spear fishing for Bahaman lobster. They hide under rocks and in coral crevices, but look less like a Maine lobster and more like the Aliens’ Facehugger stage of development. Who knew that aliens were such good eatin’?

Taking a beach break one morning, I visited one of the newest attractions on the island, the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve, which contains 25 acres dedicated to the island’s indigenous plant species. A short hike on the boardwalk trail brings walkers deep into a mangrove forest and a longer, but pleasant, trail takes visitors up a hill to a two-story tower. Climb the tower for a view of the island not found anywhere else but from a plane window.

An older, more popular tourist spot — which means I ran into a huge crowd of three people while there — is the Glass Window Bridge, a one-lane bridge on the Queen’s Highway. Though the narrowest point on Eleuthera, it’s easy to park nearby for a stunning view of the deep blue Atlantic Ocean on one side and the turquoise waters of the Bight of Eleuthera on the other, separated only by only 30 feet of rocky shore underneath the bridge.

While days on a Eleuthera can be filled with swimming, beach combing, fishing and fish shopping for the freshest of seafood dinners, there is a little night life for evening fun. Some of the bars on the island have live music nights. Lenny Kravitz, who built his own studio on the island, is said to occasionally stop by Elvinas to jam with local musicians. Mariah Carey, who also has a house on the island, is not rumored to jam anywhere but has been spotted eating out.

On Friday nights the largest township, Governor’s Harbour, hosts a rockin' charity fish fry. Locals and tourists alike come out for the fish, barbecue chicken and conch salads. A D.J spins the night away, and sometimes an informal dance contest is haphazardly organized. The night I was there, the dancing took on a bit of a drunken, patriotic fervor. Fueled by Rum Bubbas, the Texas, Florida, Canadian, Kansas, Dutch, Italian and Bahaman contestants boogied down to '80s mixes for the honor of their countries.

The fish fry was also the place to watch JJ, the island’s famed conch ninja, in action as he shucked and chopped conch, then mixed them into heaping bowls of delicious raw salad, a kind of conch ceviche. The show and the meal are well worth the price.

The only unpleasant part of the evening was when Al pointed out the airport security official who would be X-raying my luggage the next day. I waved at him a little sadly as he wandered by, a living reminder that it was almost time to dig out my watch and fly back to a place of hours, minutes, and seconds ticking away.