Had a quiet night watch.
We are still motoring North. For a wile this morning the wind picked up to Force 4 from almost dead
ahead and we set the fore and aft sails to try to take advantage of it but soon took them in again as we
came abreast of Guadalupe and the wind died away.
The skies are still cloudy but not as threatening looking as they were at dusk yesterday.
The boat frame that we acquired in Grenada is being worked on. The main hatch has become a boatyard
and by the end of the day it looks like one with wood shavings everywhere.
More later…
It’s now 3:30pm and we are approaching the island of Montserrat. This island has an active volcano that
forced the abandonment of the principle city on the island about 10 years ago. The top of the volcano is
hidden in clouds but you can clearly see the broad ashy looking fan of lahar and pyroclastic flow debris
running down to the sea from the summit.
The remains of the city can be seen rising above the grey ashy concrete like flows. This area is in stark
contrast to the lush green of the north side of the island where most of the people relocated to.
The ash from the volcano seeds the clouds causing them to boil up downwind of the island. It almost looks
like it is erupting furiously but it isn’t at the moment.
The 12-4 watch is busy setting all our sails so we will be sailing by the time I go on watch in 20 minutes or
so.
Later…
Had a workshop on wooden boat building while the ashy coast of Montserrat passed by to starboard. You
could smell the sulphur in the ash plume. As we passed by the island the wind curved around and briefly
headed us then picked up speed so that we were really moving along under all sail by sunset.
Thanks for reading.
KJ
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