The Honeymoon (spot) Is (nearly) Over!

This post is something I’ve been thinking of doing for years–but a few things got in the way. One, when the news first hit (in 1996-7) I didn’t really have a blog or a website. Two, in the decade since then, the inertia of going and scanning some honeymoon album photos (we didn’t exactly have a digital camera in 1994!) and figuring out if we had pictures to compare to recent Montserrat images since the volcano became active, has kept me from making much progress. But, with the new year bringing news of another large set of rumblings and activities, I decided it was a reasonable time to do the work.

The Background

In December 1994 Margaret and I spent our honeymoon on the wonderful island of Montserrat. Towards the end of the week there, we hiked the tallest mountain (Chances Peak, ~ 3000 ft.) and hiked (down) into an infant volcano. Our guide, “Archie Bunker”, (yes he asked us to call him that) said as we hiked into the volcanic area: “did you know that in 24 hours, through a set of earthquakes and geological activity, that this infant volcano could become active and built itself into a mountain?” It seemed a bit exaggerated–little did we know that in 1995 that very thing would happen.

Plymouth Destroyed

In 1997, the main town of Plymouth was basically destroyed in what was the first large eruption of the now-active volcano. At the time, many residents left and a safe zone in the north portion of the island was marked out for those that stayed. It was major international news and even caused a British government official to quit over a “row” regarding details of payments provided to families repatriating on other islands. Since then I’ve seen Montserrat rarely in the news until January 2007. I’ve now found the Montserrat Volcano Observatory website and what follows is a series of photos combining scans of a few photos from our 1994 trip and photos from the albums on the MVO website. (If the MVO website gives you fits, give it a try later..seems they have been hit with a lot more web activity than their bandwidth or servers can handle!)

For reference, use this map of Montserrat for a reference to the following images.

Here is a picture of me standing in front of Chance’s Peak, around the village of St. Patrick’s. Left of Chance’s Peak is Gages Mountain. As you can see, no volcano in this picture!

Here is a 2006 image of with Gage’s Mountain to the left, Chances Peak to the right, and the volcanic rim in the middle. This picture is not from the same vantage point (on the map it would be from the Gages area, more NW than the 1994 image above), but you can see that the terrain has changed quite a bit and that the volcano basically is another 3000 foot mountain next to Chances Peak!

As mentioned above, the town of Plymouth has basically been slowly going “underground” due to flows from the volcano to the west, basically obliterating what was once the bustling hub of the island. Here is the center of town in 1994:

In 2001, the MVO published this image of the central clock tower:

By 2003, the top had been “popped off” by the continued flows..the MVO caption adds: “The top of the clock tower – which once stood 55 feet high and has been a symbol of the gradual inundation of the former capital of Montserrat – lies in the foreground on the right hand side of the picture. Photo taken 30 December 2003.”

As far as our 1994 visit to the volcano itself, here are a few pictures of the trek down into the volcano. “Archie” and Margaret descend (we are basically at the base of Chance’s Peak..or that general area) into the volcano crater area. Yes, it was smelly and there were hot sulfuric springs running through the area.

When you reached the “volcano” itself, it was barely a couple foot tall hill of sputtering gray matter:

Well, that’s all for now. Here’s a closing picture of the young newlyweds with the volcano! If you look closely you can see sputtering gray matter in mid-air. I guess we won’t be going back to Montserrat anytime soon, but it sure was a fun week in a very quiet and relaxed island that has seen a lot of changes in the 12 years since our visit.