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04:04 17:08.25N 62:37.91W
Well hello again. And this week we have been
simply inundated by requests from our adoring fans (well, one) asking for a blog
update. So here we are! Back by popular demand!
Hmmm.
Well, it’s not that I haven’t wanted to write the
blog you understand, it’s just that, well, we haven’t done
anything…
Of course, that’s not quite true. Our last
gripping installment left us hanging on the cliff edge of, dun dun
duuuuun, going to Montserrat. As my trustee and oft quoted guide, the
Lonely Planet describes:
“There was a time when travelling to the island of
Montserrat combined two activities that had not been envisioned in tandem very
often:
1. a Caribbean vacation
2. A Death wish.
”
Yes that’s right; Montserrat is that island with a
live volcano on it.
For all you mothers out there, you can stop
panicking. We’ve spoken to both of you since, so as you can tell we
survived. No. The Volcano hasn’t actually blown up since January of
last year, and is thus close to being declared dormant again. But since
July 1995 it has been causing havoc on the island, to the tune of 19 dead, and
2/3rds of the island being declared an exclusion zone. Where previously
the population had been 11,000, this dropped to under 2,000 during 1995–97, the
period of most intense disturbance, as many of the displaced population left the
island altogether. Some of them are slowly coming back and the permanent
population is now 4,000, plus all those who live else where but come back
sporadically to see how their old homes are fairing.
We took a taxi tour into the safe zone, and up to
the top of Garibaldi Hill from where you can look over the old capital of
Plymouth – completely engulfed in ash and mud flows. But first we went to
the observatory and watched a short video about the eruptions of the Soufriere
Hills Volcano. It was very well done, and had actual footage of the actual
events, which were nothing short of stunning. In common with all the other
volcanoes in this area, the eruptions were pyroclastic, meaning ash, rocks, and
gas rather than free flowing lava. But at 600 degrees C, and hurtling down
the hill at 100 km per hour, burying the towns under 15 plus feet of ash, it
still pretty much incinerated everything in its path. (By far the
cleverest bit is that it completely obliterated the Golf Course). The
first eruptions gave enough warning for lots of scientists to turn up on the
island and set up a research station, and for everyone to evacuate, but they
kept happening for 2 years and it was the later ones where people started
getting complacent and trying to return to their homes which caused the loss of
lives.
  Our intrepid taxi driver throwing caution to
the Wind in order
to This
moonscape used to be a verdant river valley. Some 20ft below our feet
show us his
island
is a
bridge over the Belham River – now all buried in dust.
These used to be regular houses, not just
roofs sitting on the
ground. The
ash flows completely filled the insides too.
There’s not a lot left of Montserrat. George
our taxi driver did say that people are coming back, and the young people too,
and I think things will change when they actually declare the land safe – if the
Volcano decides to really go back to sleep again. Bizarrely enough, land
is extremely expensive, even in the exclusion zones, and no one is hanging
around waiting for it all to stop: there is building work going on
everywhere. They are even selling the ash to St Martin! But it does
all strike me as a bit premature, as already one of the most prestigious hotels
on the island put in thousands of hours of work fixing up the hotel, shifting
the ash and rebuilding the rooms, only to have to shut down again because old
Soufriere had another bad hair day. It is a beautiful island – as green
and luscious as all the rest, and I’m sure when it finally calms down former
glory will be restored. Until then though, there is a palpable sense of
limbo, of a lot of people hanging around looking kind of lost.
Here you go, this is Nevis where we are now.
Christopher Columbus thought the clouds made the mountain look covered in snow
(‘Nieve’ in Spanish). I thought ‘Halo’, and Chris thought ‘Nuclear
Explosion’. We arrived last Thursday, and basically have been stuck here
ever since. We are on a mooring buoy just outside a rather horrid hotel
called the 4 Seasons, who don’t like yachts, so I’m not going to be nice about
them either. But the beach is rather good. We have had an average of
20 knots of wind all week, sometimes gusting up to 35, and so we haven’t really
felt like venturing away. The odd thing is that other than being a bit rolly, we
haven’t had any waves. Whereas further round this rather sombrero shaped
island there have been 4 meters of swell, we have had a mere man’s 6”, so have
decided to stay put. Eventually we will run out of water, but until then
I’ve been in 7th heaven: physically unable to do anything other than read books
and watch DVDs. It’s almost not even worth getting up… There’s just
about enough internet access to download a weather file, but not enough to make
anything else work. I’m jolly glad we bought 7 month’s worth of tinned food to
get us across the Atlantic! Now all I have to do is find something
interesting to do with tinned carrots. Any suggestions?
On one of the few days we did manage to get ashore, I did one of my 3
failsafe shore based activities: stuffed Chris in a sack and bundled him
off to the nearest Botanical Garden.
This is an Autograph
tree.
The owners live part of their time in Bali, so
they Check out these lipstick
palms!
have some interesting plant pots.
So again we sit and play the waiting game, watching the weather forecast
for a moment to strike out for the shores of some distant land such as St Kitts,
a scary 7 miles away.....
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