We left Antigua on 10^th February and after some 50 miles anchored late at night in Desahaies on the North West corner of Guadeloupe. It was dark when we arrived. Next morning Pat’s knee was swollen so Barrie and Margery went river walking while Paul cleared customs and immigration and Pat sat in a beach bar drinking French coffee.

Paul and Pat had a lazy lunch in the village and then dinghied back to the yacht. On the way Paul pointed out an unusual cloud formation in the North West.

The forecast was for light winds and no rain so this rapid build up looked a little unusual.

Paul spent the afternoon scraping barnacles off the bottom of the boat. When he went to pick up Barrie and Margery the sky was now looking very dark and threatening – nothing like the forecast. What was going on?

Paul was getting excited now especially as there was a spectacular halo round the sun.

And then the mystery was revealed – a local came by the yacht trying to sell us bread. Before he left he told us to take everything off deck and close all the hatches – the volcano on  the island of Montserrat had just erupted again.

Deshaies is about 40 miles from Montserrat.

The next morning I could have cried. My beautiful yacht was covered in ash. It was everywhere. I started to realise in a tiny inconvenient way how the people of Montserrat must have felt when their homes were covered and they had to evacuate the island. You could feel it in your hair and taste it between your teeth. Even the surfaces downstairs were covered with a fine dust. But nothing like up on deck.

At least we didn’t have lava flows to contend with.

We were up at 0600 as we had a long way to go - but it took us an hour just to clear a path from the cockpit to the bow to get the anchor up.

This is the normally see through hatch to downstairs.

We spent all day cleaning the boat while sailing to the South coast of Guadeloupe to get further away from Montserrat and to get protection from some forecast 3 metre waves.

Went to bed tired only to find another light covering the following morning. This could go on for days. We’re now in a marina near Point-a-Pitre, the capital of Guadeloupe. It’s further away but no better. At least we have mains water for the never ending cleaning. Still we’re all safe and it’s nothing compared to what those poor guys from Montserrat suffered.

This is Caribbean sailing at its best!