Montserrat - Volcanic Destruction

Blogger: Gill

Off at 6am to sail to Montserrat. As we rounded the corner of Nevis we could see the island 30 miles away, with a tablecloth of clouds covering the summit and we were hit by wite topped waves and an easterly wind. Just too easterly for us to sail so we resigned ourselves to motor sailing with the main and genoa up. Dick and Mary on Alacazam overtook us about five miles out. Their light boat points a lot higher than ours and they were happily sailing. Damn! 

Arrived in Little Bay in the north of Montserrat at 2 pm and anchored off the black pebble beach. Then to check in. What a performance. Four custom/ police officers. Four different stories of how to do it. We followed Dick and Mary around the process and unanimously decided a strong beer was in order when we finally succeeded in checking us and Petronella in.

Montserrat, which is British, was devastated by volcanic eruptions when Mont Soufriere exploded in 1995, and over the next fifteen years covered the southern half of the island in volcanic ash. This was followed by mud slides which completely covered the main town of Plymouth, causing the 9,000 inhabitants to either move elsewhere or leave the island. The new capital is Little Bay but there is not a lot there. A few bars, a cultural centre donated by George Martin who had a recording studio on the island and some small supermarkets. 

Smallscale industry. The weaver's factory on Montserrat

We hired a guide for the day and he took the four of us round the island. The whole of the southern half is off limits to visitors as the volcano is still active but Joe took us as close as we could get, to his old house, now hidden in the jungle, to a hotel now full of ash, to two storey buildings now buried with just with the roof showing. He had photos of what these looked like before the eruption and it was sobering stuff. It was a rich island with lovely colonial houses and the best are now gone for ever. Over everything the volcano looms, smoking away and clouds of sulphur dioxide float down towards the old town, making the air smell of rotten eggs.

Weekly volcano bulletin

Mount Soufriere covered in cloud and gas

One of many houses now reclaimed by the jungle

Large iguana ambling across a lawn

This used to be Plymouth, capital of Montserrat. Now all buried beneath lava and mud flows.

Back at Little Bay we took advantage of the lovely walking country with good trails to explore the beaches around. Just round the corner from Little Bay we found a completely deserted beach, palm tree fringed with beautiful white sand and warm crystal clear sea. A picture postcard paradise beach. And with loggerhead turtle tracks up the beach to where they had laid their eggs. Wow wow. The swimming was great and our costumes stayed dry! 

"Our" beach

On "our" beach after a fine naked swim.

Loggerhead turtle tracks leading to their nests

Sunday saw us negotiating the minefield of trying to check out without paying £45 for overtime rates. Alacazam managed it first and then we went in, and had a long discussion with the official before we persuaded him that all four people we had spoken to on checking in assured us we wouldn't have to pay. In the end he gave in but it was a pretty chaotic process and doesn't make you want to go back, which is a shame because it is a lovely island with friendly people. Curry on board Petronella with Dick and Mary then an early night ready for the next country! 

St Kitts and Nevis

Blogger: John

After our enjoyable few days in Dutch Saba it was time to set off south again to the former British islands of St Kitts, Nevis (Neevis) and then onwards to wards Montserrat. The first few miles along the west coast of Saba were fine but as we ventured out of the protection of the island the easterly wind and current started to catch us and gradually push us away from our next destination, St Kitts, visible in the distance. We had around 35 miles to make but as time went on we were swept further and further to the west away from the chain of islands. 

At last - St Kitts

This was a shame and it meant we had to turn on the engine …[Hey, this is amazing. I’m typing this a few days later in the evening at Deshaies, Guadeloupe. It’s a still night and there is whale song reverberating through our steel hull!! I’ve no idea how far away they are but they remind me of the day we saw the Minke whales when we were crossing the Atlantic!].…Going south in this section is always difficult but it was frustrating nonetheless. We battled slowly into increasing winds and waves making only 2k. Slowly we drew level with the northern tip of St Kitts though and we pushed on for our planned destination of Basse Terre near the southern end, another 10 miles or so south. There was ash and smoke around and we thought at first that St Kitts had a new volcano developing on it but it turned out to be burning fields. Why or what, we have no idea but there was enough of it to leave ash fragments on the deck and we were over a mile offshore at the time. Finally Basse Terre came into sight. Not a pretty sight though as there were several cruise ships tied up, it appeared pretty industrial and anchoring looked tricky. A quick look at the pilot guide showed some anchorages another 5 miles across the bay. Again we moved on. Now it was much better. We were sheltered by the southern tip of St Kitts, there was a steady breeze and a flat sea. We finally dropped anchor in White House Bay on gently shelving sand. We hoisted our yellow flag and went to bed.

We stayed a further day in White House Bay before moving on to Nevis and the famous Pinney's Beach. A brisk sail across the sound between the two islands and we picked up a buoy or mooring ball as they call them here just off the long beach. There was only a bit of wind so our expert team had no trouble motoring up to it, hooking the pick up rope and putting the three lines from Petronella round it. Rather different from the result in the BVIs when we got the buoy caught round the keel and then the propeller. That adventure resulted in Gilly stripping off and diving in to sort it all out. It also coined the famous phrase “Get your kit off for the buoys!”

Then it was into the dinghy to motor to the capital of Nevis, Charlestown, to check in. We were slightly uneasy (OK, Gilly, I was slightly uneasy) as we had checked out a day before we actually left Saba and then spent 3 days getting to Nevis, only 40 miles away. What would the Immigration people say to that in Nevis? The answer was “nothing”. The lady wasn’t even interested though the Customs guy, recalled from some dodgy deal elsewhere did ask for our Clearance from Saba. He didn’t bother looking at the date though. Finally onto Port Police and a cheerful chappie with a big smile and a big beard who gave us a map, welcomed us to Nevis and took 62US dollars from us for using his buoy at Pinney's Beach. We just managed to find enough dollars before being told we were free to go.

Nevis is poor. Not edgy but not completely tamed either. Cool dudes hung around street corners, reggae and rap music blasted from the speakers outside the port buildings and the veggie market was in a little covered area just off the main street. We made our way back to the dinghy where a combination of the local ferry and a lively sea made for a nasty surge in the harbour and gave us an interesting exit.

Back at Pinneys Beach that evening we went ashore. Not certain if we were actually allowed ashore there we waited for a couple of other dinghies to land before rowing to the beach. A long, clean tropical beach backed by palm trees with a few beach bars and, near the northern end, the Four Seasons Resort, a five star holiday retreat. It was quite rolly as we approached and although we managed to come in at right angles to the waves and drag the boat up the beach, the next two parties were not so lucky, one turning sideways and shipping a load of water, the other completely overturning drenching the occupants. We opted for a beach bar, Turtle Time – a couple of drinks and then lobster and curried prawns. The highlight here though were the underpants worn by the local men. With their trousers worn well below the waist and their crotches by their knees we spent the evening looking at large expanses of underpant. One guy was even seen swimming in this get up, and actually had two pairs of pants on, one on top of the other. It was obviously the uniform of local hip kids. That evening, as we went to bed I pulled my trousers down over my underpants in the same way. Gilly was not impressed though and my trousers were the only thing I pulled that night.

The following day we caught a bus to Golden Rock, a beautifully restored sugar cane plantation mansion and then walked to Bananas. Quite a hard walk on the side of the volcano, before dropping back down into Charlestown.

Another full day was taken up with jobs like lugging jerry cans of diesel ½ mile in the humid heat.

Hot work in Nevis

We also did the laundry, especially sheets and towels! Laundry day is always interesting as it involves finding and then getting close up and negotiating with the local entrepreneurs. In Nevis this takes place at Mr Sunshine’s beach bar. In we dinghy to find he is not there. Some dodgy guy then says his f-ing girlfriend will do it and how much do we want to pay. We agree 25US dollars. Then Mr Sunshine’s representative arrives who tells not to trust this dodgy geezer, he will do it on behalf of Mr Sunshine. Bring it in tomorrow. Finally Mr Sunshine arrives and confirms the deal for 10am the next day. We can't get a price from him though. Next day comes. The washing is dinghied ashore (without capsizing in the breaking waves) but no sign of Mr Sunshine or his oppo. We have a drink to wait for them. Eventually they arrive and the washing is handed over. We go off to do other things. Amazingly when we return in the evening the washing is sitting on a table with no one around. Finally the deal is done (25US dollars if I remember correctly) and the laundry can be crossed off the to-do list for another fortnight.

Mr Sunshine's Bar on Pinney's Beach, Nevis

It was here on Pinney’s Beach that we first met Dick and Mary on Alakazam, a one-off boat they spent 4 years building. Great fun, we decided we would sail to Montserrat in company so that we could photograph each other’s boats. These are pictures that are hard to come by because when you are sailing along there is normally no one to photograph you heeled over powering through the waves. Here was our opportunity.

And so it’s time to leave and move onto the next island. Montserrat, currently the most active volcanic island along the chain.

Saba Island. Never hang your hat higher than you can reach.

Blogger: Gill

Never heard of Saba? Neither had we. It is a former Dutch island, small, 5 miles by 3 miles precipitous volcanic island some 90 miles south east of Virgin Gorda and lies due south of St Martin. We arrived there just as dawn broke after a 19 hour motor sail from the BVIs and tied onto a mooring buoy before anyone else was awake in the anchorage.

Dawn, approaching Saba

When we looked around we were stunned.  It was breath taking. The anchorage is on the west coast of the island and the authorities have very kindly put 8 mooring buoys along the shore as it is too deep to anchor in most of the bay. We were tied up under vertical cliffs of volcanic rock with frigate birds, an eagle and white tropic birds wheeling above us, and waves crashing on a stony beach.  Wild. Remote. Beautiful. More like the Antarctic than the tropics, except that it was nearly 30 degrees C.

Petronella, Saba island

Petronella off Saba

The one drawback is that to check in there is a 2 mile dinghy ride round the southern end of the island to the customs. Clever people would note the winds and set off when they blow from the north in the morning and come back as they turn to the south in the afternoon. We didn’t know that and got soaked both ways in a pretty substantial swell. However the checking in was a delightful process with friendly customs and police sitting next to each other and costing nothing. Then it was beer for John, fizzy water for me then back to Petronella, who was happily rolling on the swell. Tried to land on the way back to look at the former customs post which is a small hut at the top of 800 steps. Not a chance, the swell was far too violent, we would have smashed the outboard to pieces on the rocks.

Next day we dinghied back round again, earlier with the swell behind us – we learn – and started to walk up the steep hill out of the harbour towards the first small town known as The Bottom, even though it is high above the harbour. The second car to pass stopped and offered us a ride, which was great. He turned out to be the one and only tour guide on the island and took us all the way up to the main town known as Windwardside, clinging to the side of the mountain above the eastern coast, then introduced us to all his friends in the tourist office and told us about the sign posted walks on the island. We bought a map and then headed up the hill to buy an internet SIM card and find a patisserie. It turned out that it was election day so the whole town was out in force, dressed in brightly coloured T shirts, canvassing the voters and drinking coffees in the cake shop. Friendly, friendly people. Mainly descended from original settlers, seven or eight generations ago, a mix of Dutch, English and coloured.

Looking down into The Bottom

Looking at the map we could see a trail leading down to the harbour. Even though I had only flip flops on my feet we decided to try it as we could always turn round and come back if it was too rough. Brilliant trail winding down through tropical rain forest with swiss cheese plants with leaves over a metre across, trailing lianas, dense vegetation, a black snake that might just have been a feu de lance, lizards, exotic birds. Wow.

Bananas

Mega Cheeseplant!

Half way down we came upon a man sitting outside a small house in the jungle, surrounded by banana plants and lush vegetation. Half an hour later we had learned a great deal about Reed Barnes’s family history and his politics.  He was a descendent of the original settlers and very proud of his island. “My father always told me never to spend more than I earn and never to hang my hat higher than I could reach and I didn’t and I am a happy man” And to our amazement, as we left he said that when we come back to visit Saba again we must stay in his house for free.  How good is that. We will be back. It’s a great place, some tourism mainly for the excellent diving, better seen from the land than from a rolling boat I think.

John with Reed Barnes

The next morning we were up at 5.30, off at 6am just as it got light and tried to sail the 45 miles to Nevis. Bad tactics on our part, we allowed ourselves to get pushed too far to the east so had to motor up into the wind for two hours in lumpy seas. Horrible wet and unpleasant. In the end we abandoned the attempt to get to Nevis and stopped at St Kitts, 10 miles up the island chain. We didn’t check in so flew the yellow Q flag, and anchored in White House Bay in the south of the island and had two days of chilling but not going ashore. 

Another Overnighter

It's 0124 on a mild night and we are motorsailing SE towards Saba, St Kitts and Nevis. A couple of interesting close encounters, both on my watch. First a large sailing yacht came towards us fine on the port bow. Very poor lighting with an anchor light, steaming light and then a feint red below as it got very close. Turned to starboard to let it go down our port side and it was right in top of us, not showing any starboard light at all. Gilly called them up and they were blissfully unaware of any problem. Anyway we missed them and they went on their way still just showing white lights. It shows how much you rely on the standard light patterns to work out what is happening. Then a while later I was watching a large cruise liner, Adventurer of the Seas, pass 5 miles to starboard when it's lights were briefly blotted out as a small craft passed close by me. It was gone in a second but again it was mighty close. No lights at all and I only saw its outline because it passed in front of the cruise ship.

Off to my left now I can see the loom of lights from St Maarten where we first arrived in the Caribbean 6 weeks ago and 25 miles ahead is the first land for 80 miles, the small island of Saba.

We've spent the last month in the British Virgin Islands, or BVIs. Originally British they are now full of Americans vacationing in big catamaran plus a smattering of Canadians and just a few European boats. It's like the Ionian of the Caribbean except it's been windy, windy every day til today. Mostly 25 knots and not that much fun really though we had two excellent days with Dave and Vera from Gleaston and a great 2 weeks with Emma when we did all the things you are supposed to do here. Bars (Willy Ts and Foxy's), pirate concerts, painkillers (rum cocktail) and beautiful beaches. We went out to the coral island of Anegarda for a bouncy night in 1.5m of water and circled Tortola island. The locals were friendly and you can't really fault it but it's a bit sanitised, American and Disneylike. So we are pleased to be moving on "down island" to some of the quieter islands. This leg is a tricky one as we are going against the normal winds and the current. Luckily today has been OK with only about 15 knots of wind from the ENE rather than the east which is good as we had to leave the BVIs by today anyhow as our visas expire.

A couple of days ago we met up briefly with Matelot who we first came across in Gibraltar. We had one of their sails to return to them. They had lent it to Blue Heeler for the crossing. It was great to see Richard and Puppy again even if our smoked mackerel did give Richard sickness and diahorrea! They are keeping moving and transiting the Panama Canal shortly before returning home to New Zealand across the Pacific.

We still have loads of pictures to post but internet connections never seem to be fast enough here. Add to the fact that unless we rely on internet cafes we need to buy a new SIM in almost every island we reach and you can see we do have some sort of excuse.

White Bay, Emma's favourite BVI beach. Just right for early morning runs.

So what's it like here? It's tropical, so the beaches look like they are out of a brochure. Coconut trees grow on the beach but so do the poisonous manchineal trees. Pelicans and gannets dive for fish and frigate birds wheel around the sky in twos and threes. Lizards big and small skitter around and everyone says "you're welcome". Days are hot but not as hot as Turkey was as there is usually the Trade wind to cool things down.

Crazy Pelican

As I write this at 2am I have a sailing jacket on, shorts and no shoes. I am just about warm enough. To my right I can see the Southern Cross and I can also see Orion, the Plough and our favourite "Big Dog" or Canis Major. There's a small boat closing on my starboard quarter that needs watching and the lights of another larger, ship have just appeared behind me. He's the overtaking boat though so whatever he is he has to steer clear of me.

OK, 30 minutes of my watch left now and I'll leave you til another day.

The Diesel Saga - how did it end?

You may remember that when we arrived in St Maarten we only had a single 20 litre jerrycan to power our 65 hp Mercedes diesel after a night of Heath Robinson work to give us any propulsion at all.

The final night - cabin carnage

The jerry(can) makeshift solution. Jerrycan tied to upright, takeoff and return cannibalised from elsewhere

Within half an hour of saying goodbye to Jen and Marcus (they left hand in hand with very few dry eyes in evidence), the boat was a mess. We have three diesel tanks, two under our beds in the aft cabin and one, the original one under the floor in the saloon, gravity fed from the other two. This system is one of the few areas I did not fully understand at the time so the first day was spent working out how all the copper pipes and hoses were linked together. By the end of the day I could draw this picture which shows the entire system including (in blue) our cobbled together solution. There's actually one pipe missing which I discovered later from the bottom tank to the old generator. So now I understood what the set up was. How to fix it was the next question.

I was pretty sure that at least one tank, probably the bottom one, had shaken loose the dirt, rust and dead diesel bugs of ages resulting in a blocked pipe and no fuel reaching the engine. Problem was, the bottom tank was fed from the top two tanks which I did not think were empty. Taking off the inspection hatch from the bottom tank would just result in diesel flooding the cabin as the top tanks emptied themselves. So start with the top tanks. I drained them both into jerry cans purchased from the local chandlery - in fact there wasn't a lot left. The port one was then easy as it is the cover I routinely take off to see how much diesel we have used.

Now it was empty of diesel I could get my hand into the bottom and scrape out fistfuls of brown gritty sediment. It's a nasty, dirty, slippery job and when I had finished it I still had to do the starboard upper tank. This was trickier as there were 3 copper tubes going into the inspection hatch. I cut them.
The same story - more muck.

Starboard tank- note cut pipes

Some of the debris from the upper tanks

We bought a 12v pump to swill out the bottom of the tank with diesel and then it was cloths and old T-shirts rubbed around inside the tanks for a final clean. Not perfect but not a bad job. But there was diesel everywhere. In the bilges where the food is normally kept, on the floor of the saloon, in our bedroom cabin, in the cockpit where we transferred from container to container. It was everywhere and it stank and was slippery. Friends who came aboard during the process (in fact at the end of the process) could only stand 5 minutes below before they beat a hasty retreat.

Next day it was the turn of the bottom tank. Even harder, as there is joinery including the table built immediately above the hatch. So we used a camera and the new pump to empty and review it. 180 litres in there to empty into jerry cans and put into the top tanks through a special filter. Then we saw the problem. A pile of gunge had built up from the top tanks right by the take off pipe for the engine (the long one in the picture).

It was this that was causing the problem. I knocked down the pile by feel with a coat hanger and swished it all around. Then we pumped and swished, pumped and swished but still the diesel was coming out muddy brown. It was miles better but I wasn't happy when we went to bed that night. During the night though I had a brainwave. Let's just not use the bottom tank routinely this season. We have plenty in the top tanks and can feed the engine directly from them. The bottom tank can just be spare diesel that can go through another filter before we use it if required. Then, in Grenada when we haul out for the hurricane season we can have another go at our leisure.

So that's what I did. The first pump through of the manual lift pump into the primary filter was still pretty murky but not like a chocolate sauce any longer. And it worked!! We motored much of the way from St Maarten to the BVIs where we are now and not a hiccup. "Well done John (and Gill of course, the two of us clad in little more than our underwear). Go and have a Painkiller." "Thanks, I will."