We always knew that the Caribbean islands were formed by volcanoes, but we never thought about how volcanoes had and continue to have serious and sometimes deadly impacts on the lives of the people living here. We began to understand the human impact of volcanoes when we sailed to Montserrat and spent a day touring the island with a local guide.
This small and isolated island lies approximately 40 nautical miles southeast of Nevis, providing us with a sporty sail in about 18 knots of wind forward of beam. Two thirds of the island is sectioned into exclusion zones, where traveling without a licensed guide and even anchoring is forbidden due to continued volcanic activity. We entered Montserrat at the one approved anchorage on the northwest coast, and dropped anchor in the early afternoon of March 9th.
We had only just begun learning about Montserrat in cruising guides, and decided to visit because we became intrigued with the history. It is best known for the volcano that destroyed its capital city and the area surrounding it in the late 1990s, and displaced 90% of the island’s population. Before the volcanic activity, artists including Paul MacCartney, Stevie Wonder, and Elton John, came to Montserrat to record albums and enjoy the secluded privacy that the island offered.
Further back in history, the first people to live on the island were the Carib, but they had left it uninhabited (probably because of volcanoes) by the time the Spanish mapped it in 1493. The island is officially an overseas colony of Britain, after many battles over it between the French and the English. The first settlers to arrive were Irish indentured servants in the 1630s, and later slaves from Africa were brought there in the 1660s. The culture today is an interesting mix and Montserrat is the only place outside of the UK that celebrates St. Patrick’s Day as an official holiday. There are also a lot of Irish names there, including Lake.
We arranged a day tour of the island with licensed tour guide Sunny, who was raised on the island after his American parents decided to move there in the 1970s. Sunny picked us up near the dinghy dock in the morning. From the time we set out, he was on the phone with officials coordinating our arrival time at the exclusion zone, where they would let us through a gate and wait for us to exit. Constant monitoring of the volcano ensures that if we are in the exclusion zone and anything changes they can get us out immediately. While in the exclusion zone, Sunny was in constant radio contact with the park staff. He was also not permitted to turn off the vehicle, in case it couldn’t start and we needed to leave quickly.
As we entered the highest level exclusion zone Sunny shared stories and photos from before the eruption with us. Listening to the stories and watching the devastation outside the car windows was a surreal experience. Interestingly, this was not one event that caused all the damage, it was a series of eruptions over a number of years. The volcano was being monitored so the people were given evacuation notices. They had 5 days to leave, and the first eruption took place a few weeks later. Over the years the volcano continued to erupt sporadically and eventually ended up burying most of the capital city, layer by layer.
During our time in the exclusion zone we walked around the capital, looking inside some buildings, stood on the old city dock, and walked around an old hotel. The most emotional stop for us was at an old church, that we were able to peek in, but not enter due to safety concerns. Much debris hasn’t hit it, but the acidic rain from the volcanic gasses has eroded the entire roof and demolished the windows. It exists now in this surreal space between being inside and outside at the same time. The pews and altar are still intact and it is easy to imagine the weddings, funerals and baptisms that took place there for so many years.
After we left the exclusion zone, Sunny brought us to the volcano observation center and then to another part of the island where we could see a debris field that created a huge new portion of land over a few days as it ran into the ocean. This area is also where the majority of the 19 people who died during the eruptions lived. The scenery is stunning; it’s not hard to tell why it was a hot spot for celebrity travelers.
While visiting Sunny’s family’s de facto museum we learned that in between the first evacuation notice, and a few years later when it was discovered, there was a bank robbery. A group of people broke into the deserted bank in the capital and stole all the money that was left behind in the safe. Eventually authorities figured it out, but by that time the money had circulated thousands of times around the island. Eventually the bank had to take the cash out of circulation by exchanging it with all the people who had it but were not involved with the robbery. The guilty parties were arrested; one of them had worked in the bank.
During the evacuations people lost their jobs, businesses and homes which they were still paying mortgages on without knowing if they could ever return. It became exceedingly difficult to stay on the island, so approximately two third of the population left in the years after the first eruption. The people who have stayed are resilient, hopeful and committed to the place. They are building up their tourism infrastructure with ferries from Antigua and plans for a cruise ship terminal. So make sure to visit if you get the chance, you will enjoy the beauty, and come away from it with a better appreciation of how vulnerable we are to the power of nature.
We had to leave Montserrat after our second night there because the wind was forecast to shift and the anchorage would be unprotected. So we got permission to travel down the west coast to avoid the heavier seas on the east coast, as we continued on to Guadeloupe. As we sailed past the volcano we could smell sulphur and see great clouds of gas and vapor. It felt like the perfect way to sum up our short stay in Montserrat, looking at the beautiful scenery, but with the backdrop of a deadly volcano always standing by ready for it’s next actions. This experience has helped us connect more deeply with the Caribbean and the people who call it home. It’s not all sun and fun after all.
