We left St. Barts on March 2nd and headed towards Montserrat. Because we were tired from the rolly anchorage in St. Barts, we decided to stop in St. Kitts and Nevis on the way. We briefly visited the town of Charlestown on Nevis. When walking around, we visited a local farmers' market, which had a large roof for protection from the sun and rain. To our surprise, a sign on the structure revealed that it had been funded by CIDA (the Canadian International Development Agency) and the European Development Agency. This was the first time we'd seen an international development project. We hadn't really thought about it that way until then, but we were travelling in the second/third world now. The produce sold at the market was (for us) a mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar; tropical fruits and vegetables, such as plantains, yucca, mangoes, and coconuts, were on display alongside potatoes, onions and cabbages.
When we got to Montserrat, we went on a tour of the island with a few other cruisers. Our tour guide used to be the chief of police! It wasn't possible to walk anywhere, because the only anchorage on the island isn't near anything. As it turned out, nothing is "near anything" in Montserrat ever since the southern volcano erupted a few years ago and buried the capital town of Plymouth. During the tour we saw the construction effort to rebuild a main town from scratch on the north end of the island, safe from the volcano which is still considered active. We really enjoyed the tour. The absolute highlight of our trip to Montserrat, however, happened as we were sailing away from the island the next morning. We were one of the last boats to leave the anchorage heading south. We passed the remains of the town of Plymouth and marvelled at the destruction it had seen. Only the skeletal burned-out remains of some buildings stick out of the thick layer of grey ash - a modern-day Pompeii. As we passed by, we smelled the sulphur from the volcano. We took some photos but stayed two miles offshore - the prescribed exclusion zone around the volcano. As we were passing the southern point of Montserrat, Geoff suggested putting up the sails. Ruth took another quick glance at the island - and noticed an odd cloud forming above the volcano! The cloud was growing rapidly. The volcano was erupting, and we were still almost downwind from it. For 15 minutes or so we didn't know if the cloud of ash would reach us or not - we motored at full speed and watched - there wasn't anything else we could do. In the end, the plume passed a couple of miles behind our stern. We missed being engulfed in it by about half an hour. Later we ran into one of the boats that had left ahead of us - it had looked to them as if we had been caught in the cloud, and they were quite worried about us! Looking at the Montserrat volcano website a few days later, we found out that what we witnessed was actually a full-blown pyroclastic flow event. Needless to say, this was a bit more excitement than we were looking for. Who would have thought that the closest call on our trip so far would have been an erupting volcano!
This was a golf course!
Plymouth, Montserrat
Montserrat Volcano
PDF of Montserrat Sequence #1
PDF of Montserrat Sequence #2
