Reflections on Montserrat

We've left Montserrat now, and are in Guadeloupe, anchored in a delightful bay called Deshaies, which is home to an extremely civilised little french village - fresh baguette and patiserie every morning.

The contrast with Montserrat is made sharper by this little bustling community. The volcano sprang back into life back in 1995 and is still dangerous, making it one of the longest continuously active volcanos in the world. Our tour with Sam the taxi driver had been interesting and enlightening, but what really brought it home to us was sailing south along the western side of the island. This took us past the exclusion zone and the devastated ruins of Plymouth. This was once a lively town, at the centre of a pretty little Caribbean island. George Martin had a recording studio here, and many famous names came out to cut albums in the tropical sunshine. The hills are lined with pretty, and expensive looking, homes but through the zoom lens of the camera, you realise that they are abandoned, delapidated shells. The bulk of the town has been engulfed in an ash flow, and the remains of buildings and storage tanks protrude from a grey-brown desert. The sulpherous fumes roll down the hillside and out over the water so that even a mile offshore we wondered if we were a bit too close.

Sam was telling us about the buildings there, those that are above the ash flows and obvious devastation. They look OK from a distance but get up close and everything is a mess, nature is taking over whilst rust and decay destroys what man has built. The carefully accumulated trappings of civilisation have been rendered useless in just twelve short years. It is a fragile construct that we inhabit these days.

And if you owned some of this, the insurance companies paid out twenty-five percent as a gesture, given that a volcano is outside the normal range of cover.

The closed and ruined southern half of the island creates some interesting situations. When we arrived, I couldn't find an immigration officer to stamp our passports, so hung around a bit. After about an hour, we met a couple of policemen arriving at the quayside in a rather smart little police launch. Oh sure, he says, just wait for me to put the boat back on the mooring and I'll be with you. Off they go, taking a little longer as one of the guys slips and falls in - being the Caribbean this merely means a change of boots and a chance for your fellow officers to have a good laugh. As we walk up to the office, Dad comments on the smart little boat, and asks if they have much to do around here. Oh yeah, he says. Yesterday, we caught fifty-four Haitians trying to land on the island. Apparently the deserted buildings are an attractive place to sneak into but on an island of about five thousand people, it's pretty hard to stay hidden, new faces tend to be noticed at the grocery store!

It's clear that money is flowing to the island from the UK, rebuilding key infrastructure like the airport and the cricket ground, but in a place that is little bigger than your average Hampshire village it's hard to start almost from scratch and have a self-sufficient economy. Tourism is almost non-existent, we saw a hostel and maybe there's a hotel or two but the island is still off the map as far as all but the most adventurous tourists are concerned. We found it a little expensive and uncomfortable but it was good to put a small injection of cash into the place. It's worth a visit.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see:

http://www.sailmail.com