Monserrat

The pelicans are feeding off the coast of Isle Bay Beach in Montserrat. Justin tells me that they like to dive for large man-eating fish. He says this because he is dumping me, with a dry bag strapped onto my back, just outside the break where they are diving. Pelicans are familiar birds and yet still they are so odd in appearance that it is unnerving to slip off the boat and swim right under where they fall gracelessly to smack the sea for their breakfast. The kids are already ashore, checking on their partially constructed huts from yesterday.

Our trip from Antigua to Montserrat was a quick one (unless you ask Quinn…in which case, it took about 60,000 years). We put up the sails while just outside of the channel markers of Jolly Harbour in Antigua. In the lee of the land, we managed to get Madame Geneva well righted for our southwesterly sail. At 240 degrees magnetic and clouds still hazing a bit in the aftermath of the late morning squalls, Montserrat was not yet visible, even at twenty-fours miles away. The wind was blowing twenty, with gusts up to twenty-five and the sea was rolling at ten second periods of five to seven foot waves. Though initially a bit on our beam, once we passed the last of the Antigua barrier, the waves met mainly with the stern.

Justin found himself bound to the helm, as the auto pilot did not seem to respond well to the conditions. Although not a white knuckle ride, it becomes nonetheless a challenging one when you find you cannot take a minute from the sail. The kids tucked into their places in the cockpit, and settled into watching for signs of “Land, ho!” But watch as they would, land did not become apparent until we were seven miles off the northern coast.

Rougher waves met our rounding the top of the volcanic island. The coast was ragged in rock and white with surf. We dropped our sails on the “lee” side, within site of the anchorage at Little Bay. The thing though about the lee side of Montserrat is that the mountains create their own tunnels of wind. We pointed into the wind and were met with a williwaw. The wind gusted firm (over forty?), at first ascending then rapidly descending like an avalanche down the mountain. We successfully dropped the main and went in search of a place to anchor.

The water was deep. The sea was all around. The harbor was in sight, if not in actuality. We dropped our anchor in forty-five feet, which meant over two hundred foot of chain (coincidentally we have two hundred foot of chain) and therefore we found ourselves on the rode for the last bit of it. We had yet to test the splicing of rode to chain so we were rather comforted to have the snubber in play as well. As we settled into the swing, we noticed the beautiful Kialoa III. So pretty and so fast, you want to be close enough to rub her but you know you got to keep your distance!

Kialoa III- look her up if she doesn’t ring a bell! A storied racing yacht.

Miss St Patrick’s Day in her mahogany dress

What is remarkable is what these five thousand can and have done. We drove through the island on a tour by St. Clair Lee. He took us through the new zones and into the outskirts of the restricted. As the van took turns further into the island, he told us of an imminent reunion of an abandoned village. The Pentecostal church was being cleaned and pews installed for the coming together on Sunday. That sounds quaint but it is anything but. By “cleaned”, I mean removing (at parts) sixty foot of ash from the roads, digging and excavating the debris rushed down from the torrents of slides, both volcanic and mud, and sweeping through layers of soot to reveal tarps that were laid with hope to preserve cricket fields. Not all catastrophes happen quickly and this eruption was long in the telling but way too short to do much about the loss of property other than wait. So many had time to move, but no place to go or no place to take what they wanted. So much was lost…and I suppose the saying that you can’t take it with you when you go becomes rather poignant in life as in death.

We viewed Plymouth, buried more than charred, from the height of an abandoned hillside hotel. The lobby was deep in ash. The reception still held the register. Bits of checks and invoices floated from the back room. Windows broken, doors permanently ajar from the volcanic dust that held them in place, hallways so challenged that the children ducked when passing through, and a pool, once overlooking a prominent park and a walkway to the town and pier, filled heavily with ash, mud and new vegetation were reminders of the limits of man’s design on nature.

And yet to stay the competition, our driver took us to a beach bar along the return to Little Bay. Here, in Isle Bay, where once was water, was now an ash filled land and beach. Most interestingly to us was how much more settled the bay. We spent the last couple nights rolling hard. It is strange to complain of seasickness when at anchor but life is strange indeed. Nights were restless and at times agitated as noises rattled and crashed, and decks creaked. The day was already slipping away though and so we decided to wait until the morning to relocate. And now a day later, here at anchor in Isle Bay, with Madame Geneva so easy, we are quick to forget the difficulty of a shaky night. 

Much love and stay tuned.