{"id":1668,"date":"2026-04-22T13:54:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/?p=1668"},"modified":"2026-04-22T13:54:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:54:33","slug":"d8-welcome-to-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/2026\/04\/22\/d8-welcome-to-paradise\/","title":{"rendered":"D+8 – Welcome to Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our first morning in Antigua resembled a true paradise. With lower humidity and somewhat more predictable weather, the early morning sun was no longer oppressive and we woke up to the sound of the waves of the North Atlantic (yes, we checked!) crashing on the shore of Jolly Harbour. Some members had gone out to the pool for some stargazing earlier that morning and now were slightly worse for wear.

With no shooting ahead of us, the team split off into smaller groups in the early morning. Some simply getting their first lie-in of tour, while others got their sweat on in the gym or on the tennis court. The Jolly Beach Hotel has a buffet option for all meals as well as a restricted premium dining pizza shack, for the lucky few who make it first to reception early in the morning to book in for the following evening. This diarist mistakenly stood in the queue for the pizza shack tickets instead of the sports equipment queue to get his tennis racquet, eventually deciding to book in anyway to trial everything that Antigua has to offer. It turned out that the receptionist\u2019s husband had served on the committee of the Trinidad Rifle Association, so a pleasant conversation ensued about the various ranges in the West Indies and around the world.

We reconvened in the lobby for a hotel induction followed by a brief, but informative, team meeting, then once again split into groups for some essential shopping and the ever-vital coffee run to the other side of the harbour. After acclimatising to wearing our heavy shooting jackets in Guyana, it was nice to be out in shorts and light shirts. However, the sun\u2019s previously tame heat soon became unbearable and extra layers of sun cream and spray had to be applied with ever increasing intensity. After finding the hotel pool again, one onlooker described the murky water as \u201can oil slick of sun cream\u201d. A special mention to Matt B for organising a run to the local laundromat for team polos, we\u2019ll see whether they come back white or a mystery colour!

After a light lunch, the real R&R began with a game of pool volleyball that lasted a few hours. Both teams then went over to the beach to model the newest England tour kit and attempt at recreating the volleyball scene from Top Gun Maverick. The same kit came in handy as everyone then charged into the sea to cool off before dinner. Despite Archie\u2019s ketchup-based incident, several lollipops awarded this morning and the excessive amount of sunscreen, we are very pleased to find the sea not too warm and the sand not too white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our first morning in Antigua resembled a true paradise. With lower humidity and somewhat more predictable weather, the early morning sun was no longer oppressive and we woke up to the sound of the waves of the North Atlantic (yes,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1669,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668\/revisions\/1669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/westindies2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}