Monseratt

Florence:

My parents woke up around 6:00 am  to start getting ready to head to Monseratt, so once my parents got up and had their coffee they started getting the boat ready and they probably had the anchor up at around 6:30 - 7:00 am. Once we had the anchor up we started leaving Nevis and making our way to Monseratt, I woke up around 7:30 and went upstairs to see how my parents were doing, we had probably made it about a mile or two away from Nevis, it was a very pretty day and I loved the breeze from the wind, the ocean gave it that nice salty smell, “which I loved by the way”.

My brother woke up shortly after that and just lay in the cockpit which I don’t blame him for because I was tired too. Anyways once we were all up there my parents had some oatmeal breakfast, I am VERY anxious about what I eat on passages, so I just had some cheerios and dried cranberries in a cup. I don’t really know what my brother has against oatmeal, but he didn’t want any. he was just getting sick of it, I guess.  shortly after we ate, we opened the main sail, and the stay sail up and by this time, it was nine am. We were just vibing and chilling to some music which is really what we usually do on passages. At 11:30 me and my mom just sat on the deck for a bit, at this point we were about 10 – 15 NM in on our sail.

At 12:00 I was getting hungry again, but my mom said she was feeling seasick and couldn’t go down to make us food. and I really understood partially because I care and love her, and partially because that meant me and my brother could make some ramen. My mom also requested we make her some lemon ginger tea, so we did that as well, so me and my brother made ramen for the whole family, and we gave my mom some lemon ginger tea and some ginger cookies.

 We demolished those and then adjusted the sail a bit so we could go faster. We were probably 25 NM in, and we could see the island of Monseratt really well, but just before we were about a mile out, we had a charcutier board and it was very yummy. The island looked super pretty and well developed I don’t really know why but I thought it would just be this really green non developed no people living there island with an active volcano on it but I was VERY wrong because it turned out to be a beautiful, lush, developed place with a lot of history and traumatic events that had happened.

When we got there were two bays we could choose from, they were both super Rolly but one had more boats than the other. but after choosing one we went in and decided to go to the other bay because we thought it would be less Rolly  and on our way there we almost hit a metal buoy but I saw it just in time, but turns out it was all the same amount of roll and so we decided to go back to the other bay and anchor there.

 It was all pretty deep so we settled on anchoring in 25 ft. once we anchored and put the snubber on my dad went in to the water to check on the anchor and how it was holding. once he said it was okay we could all relax. We got in at about 4 or 5 pm and so we basically just relaxed until dinner and that was at 6:00 pm, for dinner we had pesto noodles and broccoli and it was DELICIOSO so big thanks to my mom for using the last of her energy and making that. anyways once we ate me and my mom watched our show Gilmore Girls and then we went to bed.

The next day we woke up nice and early because we had booked a tour of the island and we had to meet the guy at 9 am. So we all got up had breakfast and headed over to the dinghy dock . so we met the guy and we hopped in his van and drove to a grocery store where we got some food, and a couple beers and then we went on our way, we stopped at  running water station and let me just tell you that that was probably the best water I have had in months, it was a beautiful stream coming down from the mountain, it was so fresh and cold, and apparently if you drink it you will always want to come back to Monseratt so we all drank it.

So once we did we drove up a hill to this conservatory. by the active volcano and there was a telescope a balcony a building and the most pretty view I have ever seen so we all looked out the telescope and then went inside.

When we went inside, we bought tickets and our tour guide left and said take your time and enjoy the video and that we did! So we walked into a very dark room with some chairs and a projector and  then the receptionist started the video, it was about 10 – 20 minutes and it was this very informative video on what Monseratt had gone through when the volcano erupted and it was pretty sad like I cried.

After that, we watched that we all went to the bathroom and then we left to go see the buildings that the volcano burnt down. Once we got there, we had to go through a security and then we drove through this dirt road and we had to keep the windows up because it was so dusty we got to this little lookout area and we went up and ate our samosas  and enjoyed the view.

Shortly after we went to this big opening close to a dock on the water and the volcano and then we took some photos and carried on after that he took us to another sight 2 minutes away and then we took more photos and then we walked another minute to another opening and then our tour guide said that there were rocks we could collect that a could float on water so we got some of those and then carried on, he took us to some other abandoned buildings that still had documents and important stuff in them it was pretty cool.
After we explored some more the buildings he drove us down a road with more a abandoned buildings  and an abandoned pub, then he brought us too the bomb he took us down this other road to an old burned down church on the inside it was so beautiful even though it was covered in leaves and for the most part  burnt to ashes it was a very beautiful place and I could tell why he saved it for last, well he did take us to another beach with a pub that wasn’t burnt down it was just closed after that he kind of just took us back to the dinghy dock we paid him and that was our tour.

Once we got back chilled and my parents went to check us out because we would leave the next day then we just ate some snacks my parents watched the sunset and we had dinner then me and my mom watched our show, and we all went to bed. The next day my parents got up at sunrise, and we started making our way. But tragedy had to struck us because maybe an hour or two w caught a fishing buoy our prop and it would not come off we tried everything but the stubborn thing was just being really annoying so we eventually settled on letting the dinghy down and putting dad in it to try and cut the rope and the second he did the speed shot up to 5 knots. Eventually we pulled dad back up and guided him out of the buoy field and we made about 3-4 hours later.