‘Welcome to paradise,’ grinned Jackie, a beautiful gap-toothed Antiguan woman, to my husband and I as we alighted off the cream-coloured catamaran at Jumby Bay island, two miles north of Antigua. A little frazzled from our nine-hour flight, it was hardly a jaw-dropping observation but she might have been proffering something truly profound: looking around, she spoke the truth. There before our eyes, was very clearly the purest definition of absolute, unadulterated tropical island paradise: a panoramic eyeful of white sand, turquoise blue seas and endless sky.
.. and then she asked: ‘would you like a rum punch?’ An iced, perfectly spiced drink was heading our way.
‘You must be hungry,’ giggled Jackie, laughing presumably because of the apparent madness of the sight before our eyes: the breakfast spread. In an air-conditioned room with an sea-vista, counter-tops groaned with every delicacy you could imagine, from muffins galore, smoked salmon and ‘Eggs Neptune’ (Jumby Bay’s take on Eggs Benedict with crab in place of ham). Then, our tour began: we tumbled into a leather-seated, Wimbledon-worthy buggy and jetted off for a whip-around look at the hotel-element of the 300-acre private island: ‘that’s the spa,’ Jackie pointed out, as we scooted towards the lake, a natural oasis thronging with banaquits, laughing gulls and West-Indian whistling ducks.
‘That’s one of our pools,’ she gestured, through a border of towering palm trees. ‘The farm is that wa.
