Soufriere Hills Volcano

We left Deshaies, Guadeloupe Saturday morning early heading for Jolly Harbor, Antigua. On our crossing we noticed a very strange cloud - perhaps a cloud of ash over the Montserrat Volcano. Each year as we travel North and back South by Montserrat we notice the volcanic steam and clouds over the mountain but this year the look was totally different to us. Link to the Volcano website

http://www.montserratvolcanoobservatory.info/


As we continued North we began to see very
unusual boiling clouds - perhaps pyroclastic flows of ash and rock down the Northeastern side of the volcano. Several times as we watched, large brown billowy looking clouds traveled down the mountain.







With winds from the SE - SW yesterday there was a lot of haze on the horizon at sundown, producing a very unusual sunset - no green flash - but pretty and unusual. This morning we awakened to find a fine light dusting of what we assume to be volcanic ash all over the boat and dinghy. I checked the Montserrat Volcano Observatory Web Site this morning and it does appear that there is heightened volcanic activity on the Island. As our winds shift back to the East over the next several days the ash and dust should be blown away.