Montserrat

We made it here to Montserrat yesterday after a fabulous four hour sail from Antigua. We even broke our fishing jinx, with a skipjack tuna and a kingfish providing more than enough food for dinner. We anchored with the cats and the pelicans...

Montserrat is somewhere I've always wanted to come and visit, and it is ceratinly off the beaten track, despite being just 25 miles from Antigua.

The reason for that, off course, is the volcano in the Soufiere Hills that, since 1995, has been violently active, causeing the destuction of the southern half of the island and widespread evacuations. We hired Sam, a local taxi driver, to show us round. After winding our way through the new and continuing contstruction on the north of the island, we soon came to one of the main mudflows leading down to Old Road Bay, once the best anchorage in the island.

Here, the outpouring of volcanic mud had buried houses and filled in the bay so that the sea now lapped at a new beach some half a mile further out than the original dock and waterfront.

Climbing away from that valley, the road twists and turns past many large expensive looking houses. Some are slowly being reclaimed by their returning owners, but others still have ash caked balconies and mud filled swimming pools.

Parking the taxi, we get out and walk up a very steep road, and Sam explains that the vegetation has only just returned to this area. Cresting the hill, you see why - as the volcano smokes and fumes menacingly across the valley. There is still regular activity, although right now it is very quiet and rather hard to explain to the kids just how destructive this has been.

From this hill, you can see the old town of Plymouth, now abandoned and inaccessible. Carcasses of buildings stick out of the barren ashen landscape where baking hot pyroclastic flows raced down the hillside, wiping out everything in their path. The power of this is literally awe-inspiring.

I've got to go as they are kicking me out of the bar with wi-fi, but we'll post more soon.