The truck roared past, leaving a trail of dust billowing up into the palm trees. In its wake lay a tiny brown speck - a kitten, not more than a few weeks old. I ran over, picked it up and placed it out of the heat of the midday sun. What were we to do? The road was deserted and even though it was unhurt I didn't give much for its chances without its mother's protection. 'Come on, it's coming with us,' said my wife.

'But we're going to the beach,' I protested. 'Cats don't sit on the beach.'

'We'll talk to Sunshine,' she said. 'He'll know what to do.'

So, with the kitten purring in my wife's handbag, we turned off the road and made for the beach and Sunshine's Bar.

We were heading for Pinneys, the finest stretch of sand on the tiny Caribbean island of Nevis (pronounced 'neevis'). God had a good day when he created this beach, fringing its four miles with coconut palms, sprinkling it with golden sand and speckling its warm waters with pelicans.

Sunshine, dreadlocks swinging to the reggae beat of his sound system, greeted us in his friendly, laconic manner.

'What have you got there?' he asked, as the kitten popped its head out of the handbag and mewed. 'A cat. I could use a cat. I've got mice at home. Tell me,' he asked, as though these things are subject to the vagaries of fashion, 'what do cats eat nowadays?'

We assured him that the fish and lobster on his menu would suit very nicely and so the kitten, hastily named Nisbet by my wife on the path down to the beach, found a new home. (Fanny Nisbet married the young Horatio Nelson on Nevis in 1787; Nisbet seemed a suitably neutral name, kitten sexing not being our forte).

It only occurred to me later that Nevis might have been a better name. The image of a helpless kitten is a metaphor for the Caribbean islands; lost amid the vastness of the oceans, subject to the vagaries of cruel nature, entirely at the mercy of mankind, yet undeniably beautiful.

Nature has dealt out more than a fair share of cruelty to the Caribbean in the past 10 years. Hurricanes are a way of life here, but there has been an increase in their frequency and ferocity and Nevis, like other islands, has suffered. Traditionally, the great storms come from the Atlantic, roaring over the sparsely populated and bleaker eastern shoreline, but last year was different. Hurricane Lenny screamed in from the Caribbean, swooping down on the western shore, piling up the sand on Pinneys beach and, crucially, smashing up the Four Seasons hotel, the largest and most prestigious venue on the island. As soon as word hit the US that the Four Seasons had been wrecked, Nevis was effectively written off as a tourist destination, so Lenny was a double disaster for its 10,000 inhabitants; their homes were damaged and their income cut.

Except, of course, Nevis hadn't closed for business. Its other hotels were quickly back, particularly the plantation inns. The sugar planters of the eighteenth century knew a thing or two about the weather and were careful to plant up and away from the shoreline, so the Hermitage, Montpelier and Golden Rock plantations weren't bothered by Lenny.

It is these graceful, elegant buildings that hold the key to today's Caribbean. For nearly 200 years they relied totally on slaves to tend their crops, and most of the Nevisian population descended from the Africans who were forced here in a triangular trade that saw sugar sent to England, manufactured goods to Africa and slaves to the Caribbean. When, in 1834, emancipation came, 7,225 slaves were freed, an event that is still celebrated here on the first Monday in August. Black people had the same rights as whites and every freed slave acquired a new surname. Most chose to take their previous masters', which gives rise to some startling names today.

Tyrone O'Flaherty is Permanent Secretary for Tourism. He is in no doubt where the future for Nevis lies. 'We cater for the upper end of the tourist trade - the highly discriminating tourist. We won't have casino tourism here,' he said, in the cool of his air-conditioned office. The night before I had heard rumours of a second Four Seasons-style hotel being planned. He waved these suggestions away with talk of approaches from several companies, surveys and environmental considerations, but he did not dismiss the idea entirely, which will alarm some of the plantation inn owners, who see another big hotel (Four Seasons has 196 rooms) as a threat to their business and to the infrastructure on this 36-square-mile island.

And what about the fish farm rumour? Nevis, with neighbouring St Kitts, is the western hemisphere's smallest nation state and as such has a vote at the UN, a vote the Norwegians and Japanese would value on the Whaling Commission. I had heard that the Norwegians had come with the not altogether altruistic offer to build a fish farm on the island. What on earth, I asked O'Flaherty, did an island surrounded with thousands of miles of ocean, need with a fish farm? Nothing had been decided, I was assured. Somehow it's difficult to imagine why anyone should wish to get involved in politics in such idyllic surroundings, but when people's livelihoods depend on the natural beauty and temperate climate of a tiny island everything becomes political.

Opposition spokesman Hastings Daniel was refreshingly direct. He would have no truck with a fish farm. He would want a power station.

The moon spread a carpet of silver over the dark Caribbean as we settled on the terrace at Golden Rock inn to hear the Honeybees, Nevis's oldest-established band. Its locally-made instruments include a fife, banjo, quako (four-stringed guitar), steel drum and an instrument called a baho, which used to be a hollowed out tree trunk until someone discovered that a length of plastic down-pipe serves just as well.

Over dinner Pam Barry, who runs Golden Rock, explained that the former plantation cookhouse used to belong to her grandfather who was island doctor (as Fanny Nisbet's first husband had been a century before him). She had grown to love the island and its people in the 30 years she had been there, but was tired of four-legged litter louts. The sugar plantations used donkeys for transport and now the island had hundreds of their unemployed descendants wandering untethered, tearing open rubbish bags and scattering the contents along the roadside. Strangely, they are particularly active on a Saturday night.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the 'donkey problem' but no one appears to have a solution. When a cull was suggested, large numbers of overseas Nevisians put a stop to it, protesting - at a distance - at the destruction of their heritage.

Much more entertaining than the donkeys, however, are the green vervet monkeys that live on the slopes of Mount Nevis. From the windows of our cottage in the grounds of the Hermitage we would see whole families come tumbling down to steal mangoes in the early morning, while on our balcony a bright yellow banaquit honeycreeper was vainly trying to build a nest in a lantern.

Irridescent humming birds, great brown pelicans, beautiful frigate birds; Nevis seems blessed with birdlife, most of it happy to come within a few feet of the pool or beach, so that Peter Evans's Birds of the Eastern Caribbean became as much a part of our reading as our holiday fiction.

While Nevis and the other Caribbean islands have long been independent they retain a colonial air, felt most strongly in the plantation inns. The Hermitage dates from 1740 and is the oldest wooden house still in use in the Caribbean (Nelson would have known it). Tea and cakes are served every afternoon; drinks before dinner have a club atmosphere. We found the same at Montpelier and Golden Rock; discreet charm, a sense of history, a sense of occasion.

By contrast the Mount Nevis Hotel and Beach Club is a modern development, commanding stunning views across the sound to St Kitts. It must have one of the finest vistas from a swimming pool anywhere in the world, but to call it a Beach Club is a little misleading; the beach is a 10-minute drive from the hotel. Still, the standard of the expensive cuisine more than makes up for any disappointment.

One morning we set out to climb up into the rainforest around Mount Nevis with Lynell, a tall, charismatic Nevisian who kept up a constant commentary on the flora and fauna while explaining life on the island. Like a lot of young Nevisians he left to work in the US and has returned to give something back to his homeland. He voiced a lot of the frustrations felt by his contemporaries. 'My green employment card in the US said I was a resident alien. I'm not an alien. That's for UFOs. This is a breadfruit tree planted here at Golden Rock by Captain Bligh; the wood of this white cedar makes excellent cricket bats. When I was a kid we couldn't afford cricket bats. We would play with the thick, hardened part of the coconut palm leaf and with a ball made from a crushed milk can covered with a tyre inner-tube; be careful of that one, ma'am, that's the stinking weed. Made into a tea it stops bed wetting. That's not to be confused with stinging nettle tea - that induces labour.

'Now don't stand under these big coconut palms. A falling coconut is very dangerous. Kids nowadays don't know how to climb these things. Do you know that 2,000 Nevisians are living abroad at the moment? That's a brain drain. We need those people back here.' Now, he should go into politics.

We were struck by how silent it was as we climbed higher. 'Ten years of hurricanes have made the forest quiet,' said Lynell, pointing out the trumpet tree, whose leaves turn white when a hurricane is approaching - a natural early-warning system. The pathway narrowed and we clung to branches to prevent ourselves tumbling down the steep mountainside, but it was never dangerous. Not that everyone would agree. 'Sylvester Stallone booked to come on this walk the last time he was staying at Four Seasons,' said Lynell. 'But he cancelled when it rained.' Apparently the star of all those Rocky movies thought the path would be too slippery.

Stephen Pritchard travelled to Nevis as a guest of the Nevis Tourist Office, JMC Airlines and Nevis Express

Nevis factfile

Population 10,000.
Capital Charlestown.
Currency Eastern Caribbean and US dollars

Getting there
BA, Virgin, BWIA and JMC fly London-Antigua (23-minute air transfer to Nevis) JMC also flies London-St Kitts (six- minute air transfer to Nevis).

Places to stay

The Hermitage Charming collection of 12 classic Nevisian colonial cottages, each with huge canopy beds and private balconies, set in beautiful grounds around the old main house.
Tel 001 869 469 3477/fax 469 2481. email: nevherm@caribsurf.com www.hermitagenevis.com

Montpelier Plantation Inn 17-room former sugar plantation house, set in 12 acres of gardens, ranked number one in the Caribbean by Conde Nast Traveler . Sumptuous barbecues on beautiful beach.
Tel: 001 869 469 3462/fax 469 2932 email: montpinn@caribsurf. com www.montpeliernevis.com

Golden Rock Plantation Inn Cottages and a sugar mill overlook the Atlantic.
Tel: 001 869 469 3346/fax 469 2113.

Mount Nevis Hotel and Beach Club Spectacular views from all 32 balconied rooms set in 17 acres of grounds with pool and restaurant. Tel: 001 869 469 9373/4. fax: 469 9375.email: mountnevis@aol.com www.mountnevishotel.com

Nisbet Plantation Beach Club Former sugar plantation, right on the beach.Large grounds.
Tel: 001 869 469 9325. Fax: 469 9864.email: nisbetbc@caribsurf.com www.NisbetPlantation.com

Where to eat
All the above have excellent restaurants, but you might also try Oualie Beach Hotel (001 869 469 9735); Tequila Sheila's has excellent music on Sundays.

More information
Nevis Tourist Office, PO Box 160, Edgware HA8 5YB. Tel: 020 8200 3020. Fax 020 8931 2472