There is no airport on Parrot Cay and no bridge. The journey ends at Providenciales, with a drive to a jetty and a boat across shallow, pale water to a private island in the north of the Turks and Caicos chain, where the COMO Parrot Cay resort and a small number of private residences share a long white beach and an interior of mangroves and salt ponds. Arrival by water decides the luggage: one bag, carried down a dock, for a place where shoes are optional for most of the day.

The island's calendar follows the Atlantic's. The hurricane season officially runs from June to the end of November, and the drier, steadier months that follow, from December into April, are the resort's high season. October sits late in the season: warm sea, high humidity, the chance of passing showers and, in most years, long stretches of calm. Linen handles that air well. It is cool to the touch and does not hold damp for long, and a loose cut lets the breeze reach the skin, which in humid heat counts for more than any choice of colour, a point that runs through linen in humid weather.

The beach is the centre of the day. It runs for a long way along the island's shore, the water stays shallow far out, and there is little to do on it except swim, walk and read. Guests are taken out by boat to snorkel on the reef or to a sandbar, and PP swim shorts in Oyster do for both the sea and the boat; on the sand, a Laos Short Sleeve Linen Shirt in White can be thrown over them for lunch in the shade. Kayaking through the mangroves on the island's calmer side is a gentler morning on the water, again in swim shorts and a hat.

Parrot Cay is known as much for its spa as for its beach. The COMO Shambhala Retreat, set among gardens on the island, runs yoga and treatments through the day, and the hours either side of a session ask for something soft and unstructured. The PP Natural Set in Sky Blue goes on easily over warm skin after a treatment and needs no thought at all. It sits in the PP natural sets beside the Oatmeal and the White, and its shorts, like all PP linen shorts, stay on dry land: the spa garden and the terrace, never the sea.

Evenings are relaxed but noticed. Dinner is served on terraces open to the air, the dress code is resort rather than formal, and what to wear on Parrot Cay after dark is simply a collar and long trousers. A Monte-Carlo Male in Vanille, with its walnut buttons, over PP Trousers 100% Linen in Sapphire Blue is enough, and the men's linen collection has the Bliss Linen Shirt for the nights when a breeze comes off the water and long sleeves are welcome. For her, the Amelia linen dress shirt in Blue carries a terrace dinner on its own, and the PP linen blouse in Pink over light trousers is the alternative on a cooler, windier night.

Colour behaves differently here than in the Mediterranean. The water around the island moves from almost white over the sand to turquoise and then a deep, clear blue, and against it pale linen can look washed out at noon. Mid-tones hold up better in that light: Sky Blue, Pink, the warmer Vanille. Whites come into their own in the evening, under lamps, when the sea has gone dark.

Parrot Cay is often combined with a few days on Providenciales or elsewhere in the islands, and the wardrobe carries over with little change. The wider picture of what to wear in Turks and Caicos covers Grace Bay and the larger resorts, while dressing for a private island follows the same logic of few pieces, worn often.

Leaving is arrival in reverse: the jetty, the boat across the shallows and the drive to Providenciales, with the swim shorts packed last.

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