Moving to Paradise — Volcanic Eruption
A global pandemic and then a volcanic eruption, if this were a disaster movie you would say it had gone too far!
6 weeks of lockdown and Covid 19 cases in Barbados were significantly down. Restaurants and shops were open, announcements had just been made to further ease restrictions and allow visitors back in. Life was starting to return to normal.
But wow, what a difference a week makes. Last Monday (Easter Monday) we visited the Sea Shed up on the west coast. It is a beautiful beach club style restaurant and definitely my new favourite place on the island. Full of plans to bring family and friends here when they are finally able to visit, we were also looking forward to a staycation the following weekend we had booked and postponed several times due to lockdown restrictions.
Friday came and having worked in the morning we were packing our bags when a press conference was announced due to La Soufrière, the volcano on St Vincent (an island directly to the west of Barbados), starting to erupt. Initial news did not seem too bad, the first plumes of ash had not really affected us and even when it had happened 40 years ago, the ash had come down for a day or so and then stopped.
Off we went to our hotel located just before Oistins, only about 10 mins from our house, but beach front and all inclusive so we were looking forward to a little break. The weather was beautiful when we arrived, there was talk of another ash cloud but we saw no evidence of this in the south. We had cocktails by the pool and ate our dinner outside. Lovely!
Cut to the next morning and we peer out the curtains to see a very grey day, but no visible ash on the ground. I popped back home because we had not thought to close all the windows, bring the patio furniture in etc and it was not until I started driving that I realised it was getting bad. Just 10 minutes down the road the sky was a strange dark orange and there was definitely more ash in the air. Looking on social media, parts of the north and west were in almost total darkness.
Back at the hotel and it still did not look that bad, so being desperate to make the most of being by a pool, us and several others had a go at sitting out on the sun loungers but we soon realised that there was indeed ash in the air and it was probably safest to go inside. And so began our entire weekend in our hotel room.
In all fairness, we were probably in one of the best places we could be. The room was well sealed, cool even without the use of air con (not allowed during ash fall as it ruins the insides) and we did not have to think about cooking. We powered though a series of Dexter, read our books and ventured to the restaurant for our meals, each trip being slightly more treacherous than the last with the added bonus of rain turning the ash to a very slippery sludge. Parts of the UK were waking up to snow and our outlook was not dissimilar, just a lot more toxic.
I was extremely nervous to drive home on Monday. As you may know from previous posts, our car is a piece of crap to put it mildly and I worried that ash in the engine would be the final straw. But after a hose down we were able to get home (very slowly as roads are extremely treacherous when covered in ash). The flat itself was fine, very little ash had got inside so that was a relief. I had a go at sweeping up on the balcony and the surrounding area but it felt like a loosing battle. We lost water for a while because everyone in Barbados was out hosing down their cars, houses etc and it put a massive strain on the closed water system.
Over the last few days we have had more eruptions, there does not seem to be much of a pattern, but they do seem to be loosing power a little, allowing for more clean up and feeling slightly less like it is an utterly futile exercise. We have also tentatively opened the odd window as there seems to be less in the air (other than what is blowing off the roads and roofs). I am manically checking my new favourite weather tracking app Windy to see if there has been a new eruption every 10 minutes, and when there is, tracking its progress towards us. You can see from the above image that we are directly in the path of most of the plumes, if we are really lucky it will blow a little north or south, but usually they hit dead on.
The scientists have no idea how long it could go on for, days, weeks, months, could be up to a year like in 1902 which is a horrifying thought. The airport is closed and having worked in the travel industry during several other volcanic eruptions I know how disruptive they are on global travel. One silver lining I guess is that not many are travelling at the moment due to covid, but that is set to change in the coming months. Of course the people of St Vincent have it even worse, and our thoughts are with them during this time.
A lot of Welcome Stampers seem pretty desperate to get out, I have seen someone trying to organise a cruise ship to come and take people to the nearest working airport, I am not sure how successful this will be but it is worth a go I suppose, there are certainly a lot of them just hanging around not being used. We are trying to be pragmatic about it all. We will give it another few weeks (not much choice with the airport closed) and see what the situation is then. Hopefully the eruptions will continue to lessen and we can stay, we really do not want to give up on this adventure just yet!
Disclaimer — these are all my own views and opinions and experiences, not those of Red Quokka, others may differ. If you like gratuitous pictures of beaches and sunsets follow me on Instagram Katie_in_Barbados
