Plymouth and Home

We had decided to return to Antigua in the morning. The hazard level 3 meant we were allowed to sail around the south end of Montserrat—strictly verbotten last year. We could go as close to shore as we wanted, but we could not set foot on the land.

We set sail shortly after 6 a.m., about 15 minutes after Nick and Anna. I was very keen to see Plymouth from the water. Then, horrors! As we passed Breackweck Point, a horrendous squall struck. The usual: howling winds, torrential rain. Zero visibility. The island, a couple of hundred feet away, disappeared.

We moved down the coast, closer and closer to Plymouth, as if travelling with our own personal cloud. I begged the sun to come out and clean up this mess. And, bless it, it did. The following are some of my pictures from that coastal run.

Plymouth seen through our "cloud".

Plymouth engulfed.

Plymouth, Montserrat.

Volcanic muck carved away beside Plymouth.

The volcano over Plymouth.

We made good time back to Antigua, which means we were home in time for the tot. A great three days and a wonderful island. I'm glad I drank that water as it means I'll be going back there.

Back in Antigua, it was all about waiting for the mainsail. Nerves were becoming frayed. The sail loft said it hadn't left China yet. Then, miraculously, WW got a tracking number for it, only a couple of days after it had been due. He logged onto the internet regularly to find out where it was.

We had several very pleasant social engagements. Mike and Anne had the Tot Club to dinner one night. WW and I were rum bo'suns January 24 to 29. On Wednesday, January 26, the Tot Club celebrated Burns' Night, a day late, at Life with Sainsbury's haggis, champit tatties, neeps, sundry toasts, too much food and rather a lot of wine.

We rented a car and went up to Crabb's Peninsula to look at the spectacular marina there. WW wants Django pulled for the summer and have her bottom cleaned and redone with antifouling paint before our return next fall. It was a most impressive place set amidst lovely islands suitable for pleasant shore cruises. We may take her there rather than Jolly Harbour.

Our guests, my sister Frisha and her husband Whit arrived on January 29. The sail was in Japan. Then Alaska. Then Louisville, Kentucky. Sunday night, it was in Puerto Rico.

On Sunday, WW and the guests hiked up to Shirley Heights on the Lookout Trail, where they joined me and other totties at Keep Fit. They then had a drink at Shirley Heights before hiking back down via Fort Charlotte, back to Boffo.

Whit and Frisha hiking down to Fort Charlotte.

We rented a car on Monday and went up to St. John's to visit the museum and for lunch on Redcliffe Quay. Then we drove down to Jolly Harbour to provision and show our guests the marina. When we got back to English Harbour...the sail had arrived.

Without wasting a moment, the sail was raised and furled. We organized ourselves and set off for the bay outside Jolly Harbour. Our next cruise had begun.

Under the Volcano

We arrived at Little Bay after an uneventful crossing at about 3 p.m. WW went ashore to clear us in and met taxi driver George Christian who would give us a tour for $100 US. We were to meet him at 10 the next morning.

On his way back to Django, WW asked the couple on Tom Tom, our nearest neighbours, whether they would care to join us. They were, alas, leaving early the next day. In the end, however, the day dawned bright and beautiful and Nick and Anna came to ask if they could, after all, come with us. Reducing the cost from $50 per person to $25 per person made WW a happy tourist.

George was terrific. He drove us up from Little Bay, which, for reasons I cannot fathom, the government is trying to turn into the new capital. Not more than a mile or two away is the town of Brades, probably the larges settlement on the island and home to the administrative buildings. Now, why would you go to the fuss, bother and expensive of moving everything a mile or so? Beats me. George said I was not the only person to feel that way.

I confess, I was a little concerned about the content of the tour when George, a dour but knowledgeable fellow, began by pointing our such notable sites as “the insurance broker”, “the hair salon”, “the school”, “the grocery store”. In fairness, though, there's not much to point out in a small town other than those things. Once we left town, however, the tour picked up. We stopped somewhere between (I think) Soldier Ghaut and Runaway Ghaut (rivers), to sample water from a stream running down the heavily wooded hillside to the road. A faucet had been installed. George told us that anyone who drank the water was “destined to return to the island.” Works for me. I drank both from the stream and the faucet.

The island is very beautiful with many gorgeous houses in carefully groomed grounds. When I told George I thought the island very lovely, he grunted. “You should have seen it before.”

I came to a small appreciation of the love/hate relationship he has with the volcano. It has ruined a lush and beautiful landscape...bad for locals. It is a huge tourist attraction...good for taxi drivers.

Volcanic mud, ash, and debris accumulated to fill Old Road Bay.

He drove us down to Old Road Bay, as was. The volcanic gloop (this volcano specializes in mud, ash and debris it picks up on the way down, and pyroclastic flows of steam and hot rocks; it does not do lava) that flowed down entirely filled the bay. The cruise ships used to anchor here and send their guests in on their boats. At one point, George looked down and said, “There used to be 20 feet of water here.” The golf course is 15 feet under. It beggars the imagination, even standing on it. We saw a small cottage to one side of the flow. Oh, beg pardon, not a small cottage, the second floor of quite a large house.

A house, buried up to its second floor in compacted volcanic goo.

(By the way, I forgot my camera for this trip. Doh. The photos were sent to me by the very kind and obliging Nick and Anna. They are a delightful young couple from the UK taking a six month sabbatical from life and work and everything to sail the islands.)

George walked us over the several hundred meters of new land that used to be a bay. By a small pond, he picked up a stone and pitched it in. It floated. We came away with nice lumps of pumice to keep our feet pretty.

Then he took us up Garibaldi Hill, a very steep climb that took about 20 minutes. We were all warm and puffing by the time we crested the rise. And there, spread before us, was Plymouth. Abandoned. Crumbling. The roofs have gone because, as George explained, the ash ate through the nails holding on the shingles. If a great hand had taken aim, it could not have done a better job of totally engulfing the city.

George pointed out the Air Studio building and said George Martin still comes to the island, was, in fact, there as he spoke.

Then it was up to the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) for spectacular views of the volcano's north side.

The Soufriere Hills Volcano seen from the MVO.

There we met a man from St-Jean-sur-Richelieu who has bought a house nearby. (We drove by it; a lovely seaside estate on Breackweck Point.) He fell in love with the island a few years ago, bought land and intended to build until an aged neighbour had to sell. He got the house, he says, for half the asking price. The volcano is a non-issue, he says. When I mentioned last year, he threw his hands up in a most Gallic gesture and agreed, last year was bad, terrible, awful.

George took us to get some groceries then delivered us back to Little Bay where we had lunch in the tiny beach bar (which is still able to crank out boat-shaking decibels until 3 or 4 in the morning). We sat at the beautiful mahogany bar, donated by George Martin from his house. Around it are little brass nameplates: Paul McCartney, Sting, Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Jimmy Buffet. Choose your superstar.

The four of us returned to our dinghies and bade each other farewell and fair winds.

To Montserrat

We had a good weather window on Friday, January 14, to sail the 25 or so miles southwest to Montserrat, so off we went.

We had made an attempt to visit this island in late 2009, but the anchorage at Little Bay, the only harbour on Montserrat, is not recommended in a northerly swell, which we had had. We managed to hang tight overnight, but then were attacked by a vicious, thundery squall which caused us to drag, so we ended up circling about trying to anchor. In addition, Montserrat's volcano was having a bad year. The hazard level (as determined by the Montserrat Volcano Observatory, www.mvo.ms) rose to 4 of a possible 5. Its activity finally began to wane in the spring after a dome collapse during which it spewed volcanic ash nine miles into the air. During our previous visit, there had been numerous pyroclastic flows (fast-moving steam and rocks) as well as ash pumped out at an impressive rate and carried it straight over Little Bay. Volcanic ash is bad—very bad. It contains sulphuric acid which eats up metal things, likc windlasses and other expensive yacht fittings. We and our guests had very much wanted to visit the island but, in the end, we turned tail and fled to Nevis.

This time, we had much better luck. There was no swell and not a great deal of wind. Little Bay was a pleasant stopping place, the volcano was behaving, with the alert level being a balmy 3. This meant we'd be allowed into the Daytime Entry Zone, the northwestern corner of the Exclusion Zone.

Django sitting pretty in a calm and pleasant Little Bay, Montserrat.

Perhaps a bit of history is in order.

Montserrat was originally settled by Arawak and then Carib indians. Columbus sailed by it and named it Santa Maria de Montserrat, for its toothy mountains. It was claimed by Spain, but no one did much with it. To the immediate northwest were the islands of St. Christopher (St. Kitts) and Nevis. The latter was British but the northern part of St. Kitts was held by the French. In the mid seventeenth century, the British were worried about a possible French invasion. A lot of their workers were indentured labourers from Ireland and there was concern that these might sympathize with and take the sides of the Catholic invaders. To remove the threat of rebellion from within, these workers were resettled on Montserrat. To this day, the Montserratians have huge St. Patrick's Day celebrations, and the island retains a few very Irish place names such as Cork Hill and St. Patrick's.

In the 20^th century, Montserrat became a favourite playground of the fabulously wealthy. George Martin built his Air Studio there and the elite of the pop and rock music worlds recorded there: Sting, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Clapton, Stevie Wonder and more.

The front building is the erstwhile Air Studio.

In 1989, Hurricane Hugo devastated the island. The studio closed. The beautiful people faded into the distance.

Then came 1995, as though the island needed more drama. The Soufriere Hills Volcano woke up.

Six major ash/mud flows careened down the mountain's sides, creating land where water had been, annihilating everything they touched. Nineteen people died. The capital town of Plymouth was engulfed and is now a ghost town. Islanders fled their home in droves. The population shrank to less than half of its pre-eruption head count. There are about 4,000 inhabitants now, all living in the north third of the island. The remaining two thirds are the Exclusion Zone, to which access is carefully controlled.

The Montserrat Volcano Observatory keeps close watch on the volcano, adjusting the hazard level as needed and, with it, access to various parts of the island. The locals were told the grumbler would probably give up after five or so years. It has been 15 years, and still it belches and groans.

Back Aboard

We returned to Antigua and Django on January 8, 2011, after a lovely visit with family and friends, a groaning board at Christmas, and a fabulous New Year's stay at dear friend Lorna's house in Val Morin.

Django was in excellent shape and Peter reported no problems at all, except that the bimini had sagged badly under heavy rainfall. He'd just dumped the water and all was well. He'd attempted to pump the bilges but, as usual, they were bone dry.

We were soon back in the groove with our friends and neighbours. The day after our return we went to Keep Fit and helped clear the bottom part of the trail from Fort Charlotte to Shirley Heights. I was given a saw to work with—not my weapon of choice—and ended up using it on a rather large, obstructive cassie. Cassie is the local name for acacia, a low-growing tree with fearsome thorns. Word has it that this is the very plant from which the Crown of Thorns was built. The thorns vary from baby quarter-inch fiends to inch or longer diabolical spikes. They fall from dead branches and penetrate even the thickest shoe soles. If they don't prick you right away, they are happy to work their way through. I have taken to carrying needle-nose pliers so I can extract them early in their migration. Somehow, goats manage to eat cassie, despite its defenses.

So, there we were, my saw and I. I had to stand under a cassie bough, close to the trunk but in from the many smaller branches (all armed to the teeth), and saw through its two inches of diameter. I had gloves, so I carefully removed thorns to give myself a handhold. All fine except I was standing under a large, heavy, fully armed cassie branch which, once I sawed through it, would land on...well...me. Fortunately, a fellow tottie was nearby and we managed to extract the great thing without too much fuss. Bloodied but unbowed, I left the field of battle swearing never again to accept a saw at Keep Fit.

Nasty cassie...

We were still waiting for our new mainsail which, the sail loft assured us, would arrive as planned on or about January 26. We had guests arriving on the 29^th and a fairly packed schedule of events to keep them entertained, for which the sail would be essential. It was a nervewracking time.

In the meantime, we decided to take a short cruise to a place we'd once tried to go to, but had been foiled by wind, weather and, to add interest and excitement, volcanic activity.