Montserrat
Arion's West Indian Adventure
Hermione & Douglas Pattison
Fri 12 Feb 2016 22:44
| The sail from Deshaise in Guadeloupe to Montserrat was a frustrating one with little wind and rain nearly all of the way….. but, after 5 hours we arrived in Little Bay (North of the Island) in time for lunch in the beautiful sunshine! We soon discovered a lovely bar run by a chap called ‘Moose”. He invites you in and you help yourself- if any of you visit here, do come to this one, situated behind the smarter one on the waterfront. It is much more fun and full of locals who are extremely warm and friendly to us Brits! Today we went on a trip around the Island with ‘George’. It was sad and eerie driving around in the exclusion zone, which covers almost the entire Southern end of the Island. Abandoned houses, buried in ash….. it really is a ghost town following a period of volcanic activity from 1995-2010. (The major eruption was in 1995, miraculously only 17 were killed. You can see from the photos how the flow of hot ash and rocks swept through the entire capital city, Plymouth. This is now buried. In the time before 1995, Montserrat was a hub for the rich and famous. It was buzzing with stars who came to record music in the studios just below the souffriere hills. This is now a ruin. The people here are warm, lovely and up beat. The population went from 13,000 to currently 4,000. They are just starting to recover, and where we are anchored is the site for the new city. At the moment it is just a road, port and a few buildings. We leave tomorrow to go back to Guadeloupe to pick up cousin Rhianna which is very exciting!! Lets hope for some decent breeze in the right direction!!……...  |