Montserrat - 16:48.082N 62:12.514W

Roysterer
Peter & Penny Hesleden
Thu 10 Dec 2015 17:08
07/12/2015 - Little Bay Monserrat

We motorsailed all the way from Deshaies to Little Bay in quite calm conditions so a relatively comfortable crossing.  Mark tried his hand at fishing and thought he's caught something battling for 40 minutes to bring the line on board.  It turned out to be a clot of seaweed but as you can see from the photo he managed to take his disappointment quite well.  We also skirted around the exclusion zone and saw how the volcano had destroyed Plymouth their capital. We average 7 to 8 kts and arrived at 3.30pm but decided to put off clearing in until the following morning as they are scheduled to close at 4pm. 

Montserrat has adopted the Sail-Clear system and once registered clearing in was relatively straightforward.  We had arranged to meet Joe Philip of Avalon tours to take us around the island as we had so much enjoyed our earlier visit in April.  We were not disappointed and Mark was very impressed with the hardships Montserrat has endured through hurricanes and more particularly Suffriere their volcano.

The photos show Mark 'fishing', a view of Pymouth, a rare cruise ship visitor anchored just a 100 yards or so from us, a view of the volcano observatory, a view of the Volcano.  Also we got a chance to look inside the Montserrat cultural centre and also saw the hand prints of the famous people who performed a concert in support of the people of Montserrat following the volcanic eruptions of 1997. Our photo is of Paul McCartney's hand print.

We were all pleased to have visited Montserrat, it's still an attractive place in many ways, that has endured a lot since 1989 when hurricane Hugo struck, we hope that the volcano doesn't erupt again any time soon and they can get on with re-building what must have been a lovely place.

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