We left English Harbour, Antigua this morning promising to ourselves that we will return one day to this wonderful corner of the Caribbean.

 

The trip across to Montserrat was a comfortable sail in near perfect conditions.  We sailed clockwise as close as we dare to Montserrat bearing in mind the exclusion zone that crosses the island and runs around the seas surrounding much of the south east and west coasts.  The volcanic eruptions and lava flows from the mid 1990’s are very evident and the culprit Soufriere is still steaming away making the air downwind distinctly sulfurous.  The last eruption was in 1997 but the volcano still looks alive and ready to blow again.  Lava and ash flows have covered much of the property in island’s capital Plymouth and it is eerie to see houses with only their roofs visible poking above the ash. The southern half of Montserrat was evacuated following the 1995 eruption, a lot of the property belonged to wealthy British landowners including George Martin whose Plymouth Air Studios was used by the Rolling Stones among many others.

 

Tonight we are anchored in Little Bay on the NW coast of Montserrat, tomorrow we head for the Dutch island of Sint Maarten