Doctor's Cave Beach

Doctor's Cave Beach is the most famous and the most sheltered swimming spot on the Hip Strip. The white sand crescent is wedged between two limestone outcrops, the water is calm and turquoise, and the reef just offshore is good for casual snorkelling. The beach is run as a private members' club; visitors pay a small day fee that includes loungers and toilets.

It is busy — particularly when cruise ships are in — but that is part of its character. The terrace bar at the back serves cold Red Stripe and reasonable jerk chicken. For a quieter swim, head a short walk south to Cornwall Beach.

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A story
The beach takes its name from a 19th-century English physician, Alexander James McCatty, who used to bring patients here in the 1900s claiming the water had curative powers. When the British travel writer Sir Herbert Baker visited in 1920 and wrote up his experience for the London press, fashionable society in Britain decided MoBay was the place for sea cures — and modern Caribbean tourism essentially began.