Has anyone sailed South of Monserrat?

[monte]

Hi, We're headed toward Guadeloupe tomorrow from Nevis and wondering if its advisable to sail to the South of Monserrat or head slightly out of the way and go around the North instead to avoid ash. Its only a few miles further to go North but with an easterly blowing it might be a couple of tacks to get up there.
Has anyone had experience sailing a few miles off the South coast?

[GordMay]

➥ http://www.mvo.ms/pub/Hazard_Level_S...0801.lores.pdf

[monte]

Thanks gord, saw that but wanted some first hand experiences. Anyway, had a pretty good sail to the north until the wind swung to 30K SE, so we ended up,at antigua instead of Guadeloupe. Worse places to be stranded

[Hud3]

I've sailed that route a number of times and went north of Montserrat all but one time. The time we sailed on the south side (downwind), the boat was covered with fine ash inside and out, and we breathed a lot of sulfur dioxide. My preference is to round the island on the north side, even though it can be a bit of a beat into the wind.

[monte]

Thanks hud, glad we went north in that case. Fortunately the forecast easterly actually went NE for the first 6hrs which made it an easy beat till we neared Montserrat and the **** hit the fan. Btw, rodondo rock is about 1M out of place on my navionics chart! Wonder if it moved...
Compared tracks on opencpn and iPad navionics and I was only 1M off the rock, but it showed 2M on my plotter.I was wondering why the radar image was so far from the rock!
Wouldn't want to trust that stuff in the dark... 1M off a lee shore like that had me hoping for no breakages...

[teneicm]

We went south and sailed just offshore of the destroyed town of Plymouth. It was really an amazing sight to see the abandoned town covered in ash and mudflows. Had no issues with ash as we went by and were careful to check the volcano status at the link Gord provided. We also anchored at the north end of the island and had a quite pleasant stay. The volcano observatory is an interesting place to visit and learn.

[WindLove]

Yes, you can do it. It's a very eerie site to see a town that disappeared.

[MarkJ]

We went abput 100 meters off the wharf in Portsmith. Great to see!
Ash was burning my eyes.
You need to check with the volcano observatory to see if the marine exclusion zone is in place or not as it changes every rumble....