What
I do in the line of duty is quite unbelievable, couped up in a well
stocked, warm, alfresco beer bar with loads of lovely people was the
only way the Blog would have been posted today so I had to bite the
bullet - Hic! We anchored under the cover of darkness in Little Bay ,
Montserrat
but as dawn broke it soon became apparent that it was unsafe to run
ships boats to shore.
The Captain made communication with a number of
other islands close at hand and soon found that Nevis could allow
anchorage in her waters, so off we went on the 2 hour steam.
Despite
the perennial 'grumblers' and the "I don't know why he can't get in
there" brigade the Master then took us on the scenic route hugging the
coast as close as allowed given the volcanic situation here.
Not the best of weather conditions, with frequent outbreaks of heavy rain along with patches of mist
however we were able to see the destruction the SOUFRIERE HILLS VOLCANO caused when it
erupted in 1995 and reached its peak in 1997,
covering the Island with Ash and Mud completely destroying the Capital Plymouth
A few birds blessed us with their presence on the way over
just a single ship the CLIPPER
but what went unseen were the preparations to get 380 passengers ashore, which can only be described as
BEYOND the CALL of DUTY
From
my own sea-going experiences, the logistics of all of this would have
been of gargantuan proportions, and the only way that all of this was
brought to fruition was by 'every single crew member putting in maximum
performance. Just to press one point as a for instance, all of a sudden
there were all these passengers trying to get lunch before leaving the
ship and the Catering Crew pulled it off!!!!
Once ashore there was just a little time to take in what wildlife was about including 'hundreds' of these
Then it was me to the 'Beer Bar' to catch up on some photo uploading to hopefully keep you all happy.
