Montserrat

Montserrat was devastated by the eruption of Soufrière Hills in 1995. That cataclysm destroyed Montserrat’s capital city, Plymouth and much of the rest of the island. Over half of the island remains uninhabitable today. The volcano is still very active, and an exclusion zone determines which parts of the island can be visited.

Most of the inhabitants were relocated to the U.K. and for time only 1200 people remained. Montserrat is a destination off the beaten path and infrequently visited. The port of entry and anchorage at Little Bay is the only place to stay by boat and is not a great anchorage at the best of times.

I’m cheating a bit by putting this on my list, as I’ve not visited the island but have sailed past several times and gawked at the remains of Plymouth.

The marine exclusion zone extends quite a ways out to sea and I skirted the edge when going by. I once got hailed and interviewed by a marine patrol outside of the zone while going north. I had furled my ensign while offshore and out of sight of other boats. This practice hails from times when flags were very expensive and were not used when not necessary. I had not seen the patrol boat approach when I was passing with no intention of stopping. They saw I had no ensign and were on my stern when they hailed me on the VHF. Even though I immediately unfurled it, we ended up having a lively VHF conversation before they gave me a stern warning and departed.