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.

Yesterday was another beautiful day in Paradise (Dominica). I took the dinghy into town and mailed a birthday card, picked up some buns from the bakery and visited the recently opened Budget Marine store here in Portsmouth.

Later in the day Martin, an Indian River Guide and tour organizer supreme, stopped by and invited us to his home for the evening. At about 6pm Martin came by and picked us up and we went to his home in Portsmouth. We met his family (wife and two girls), drank some home made passion fruit/orange juice mix, learned how to make plantain chips - I ate to many, and got to know one another. This was a special evening with some very special people. I will try to take a few pictures of Martin before we leave and post them to the web site.

St Pierre and Mt Pelee, Martinique

We anchored for four days off St Pierre, Martinique. The highlight of our stop here this year was our hike up to the top of Mt Pelee. Mt Pelee erupted in 1902 killing approx 30,000 people in the town of St Pierre - all but two of the residents died during the eruption.

This picture was taken from the site of the old town jail where one of the residents, a prisoner in his cell, survived.













View of the town St Pierre, taken from the rim of the crater on Mt Pelee.










Anchored off St Pierre

Bequia and St Lucia

On the 26th of Dec we decided to go for a hike at Fort Rodney, St. Lucia. Weather was great with a light breeze and from the top of the Fort you could see Martinique.








After leaving Bequia we stopped at Soufriere on St Lucia. We cleared in and then spent two days on a mooring at Malgretout. Swimming, hanging out, and I got a much needed haircut. Lesley took the dinghy out for a test ride after I repaired the prop.









While we were still anchored in Bequia we decided to take the dinghy out and explore the ruins called "Moonhole". Very interesting site but not really sure about the background and history











Another shot of part of "Moonhole"

Anchored Admiralty Bay, Bequia

We've been back on the boat for over a month now and I've been remiss in taking pictures, updating this blog, and doing just about anything else - except working on the boat. We have everything put back together that we took apart last year. Autopilot is working well with the new substitute Raymarine RAM (in a B&G autopilot system), generator is generating and no more oil leaks, solar panel is working great, and the water maker is providing all the fresh water we can use.

We've been casually moving North this year as we are not meeting guests or on any kind of schedule.

We were able to provision pretty thoroughly in Grenada but like always there is something that can not be found - this year it is beef bouillon and canned potatoes but we are making do and hoping that we will find these items in St Lucia.

We continue to use Windguru.com as our primary wind/wave source and again this year find that it is a great source for planning trips between Islands.

We saw our first "Green Flash" of the season two nights ago and I was of course very excited about that. Lesley must think I'm nuts!

I've been enjoying swimming more this season than last for some reason and we have not had as much of a problem (yet) with charter boats or those from a certain European Country trying to encroach on our anchor site! Will see if this holds true as we continue on our trip North.

Finally, we had such a great experience shipping material to Grenada via Tropical Shipping this year, we plan to ship some of our cold weather gear and unused equipment back to Florida when we return there in April.

Back In Grenada

We arrived back in Grenada late evening 6 November and have already sanded the bottom of the boat and completed bottom painting. We hope to have the boat back in the water on the 10th and then will move to Le Phare Bleu to complete re outfitting the boat.

We've been enjoying our afternoon swims at La Sagesse and the food in the restaurant is good as always.

We met several nice couples from England, Canada and Norway and found out about a new music club in St George's and hope to try that out in a week or so.

Weather has been nice with a brief shower early this evening. Hope to post a few photos of the boat yard tomorrow.

Our Barrel Shipment to Grenada is complete

Our shipment of boat supplies to Grenada is complete. Island Dreams Yacht services, located at Le Phare Bleu Marina, has our barrels and solar panel and all we have to do now is fly to Grenada, launch Gra'inne, and move to the marina where we will load/install everything.