The Beauty and the Beast of Montserrat

On our way to Guadeloupe we ended up taking a short but very much worthwhile stopover in Montserrat. The boys had been interested in seeing the island from the time we flew into Antigua. From their window on the airplane they could see the active volcano and immediately started to inquire about the island. Soon upon our arrival in Montserrat we discovered it to be a charming island with lush green mountains, accented with steep red cliffs and beautiful blue waters. However, even miles away from the island you can see the smoke from the volcano and smell the sulfur given the right wind direction. There are only two anchorages in Montserrat and they are both on the north side of the island, away from the volcano. Also, the island is a bit out of the way and not a popular destination. This was a vast contradiction to Sint Maarten which when we left the day before was hosting the Heineken regatta with over a hundred sailboats either in the anchorage or in the marina close by. For us, this meant we were able to find a beautiful secluded place to anchor between the red cliff faces and a quaint little beach.

There was a time when Montserrat was a striving island with a population of over 11,000 and a beautiful and lively capital city. However, in 1995, the Soufrière Hills volcano changed all that when it began to erupt raining sulfuric ash down on the capital city of Plymouth. People were made to evacuate the city leaving the homes, schools, livelihood, and everything they knew behind. As a result, more than half the population were forced to abandon the island and migrate to the UK and other countries around the world where they would have to start over and rebuild all that was lost. In subsequent years the volcano continued its eruptions, the pyroclastic dome that built up over the volcano would erupt sending clouds of ash into the sky and mud slides running down its sides and into the sea. At night hot boulders were visible rolling down its slopes burning the abandoned houses in its path. Eruptions continued for 15 years until the latest one, which was the largest of all, in 2010. Now the volcano sits relatively silent, with scientist watching her closely for signs of more activity. The 5,000 remaining locals (of which only half were native to the island prior to the first eruption) hope that her reign of terror is complete, and she will go dormant again, at least for another 300 years.

We took a tour of the island with a local taxi driver Sam Sword and got a real appreciation for challenges of living with a volcano. Sam was a kind man who grew up on the island, on his tour he was able to give us the perspective of someone who lived on the island before and after the volcanic eruptions. Our tour started with a stop at a water tap at the edge of the road, the water was from a mountain spring fed stream called the Runaway Ghaut. There is a little saying about the ghaut that goes,

“If you drink from this burn to Montserrat you will return”

We filled our water bottle with probably some of the best water we ever tasted and continued our way, contented by the prospect that one day we will be returning to Montserrat.

Next, we went down to the old marina where we could just make out the dock, now buried by the volcano, but we could still walk up and touch the cleat where we would have tied our boat had we arrived before 1995. Through the overgrowth you could make out the remnants of old buildings, half buried with plants now striving in the nutrient rich soil left behind by the volcano. We got out of the van again to walk through the eerie Four-Season Hotel, which was covered with ash, almost immediately after the grand opening. Throughout our tour Sam reminisced about life before the volcano telling us stories of climbing on the mountain as a boy and smelling sulfur in the air, not realizing what it was at the time. At the end of his stories, he often uttered, “it all changed after the volcano”. Our tour concluded with a video at the observatory, which gave us a detailed insight into the volcanic eruptions and the lives that were impacted by it. Now, Montserrat is rebuilding itself on the other half of the island, towns that were once considered the back country are filled with new construction, shops, banks, restaurants and bars.

After a couple more days on the island, exploring the nearby hills and swimming at the beach just off the boat, it was time to continue on to Guadeloupe. Our time on Montserrat was short, but we thoroughly enjoyed our time exploring one of the islands that touches the clouds.