Over the last few days, I tagged along with a girlfriend of mine to Miami to do some shopping (you can get just about everything here in Trinidad -- nonetheless, sometimes a girl just needs a Target). On Saturday, just as our plane was about to roll away from the gangway on its way back to Trinidad, the pilot of our aircraft suddenly came over the intercom:
"Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take a bit of a scenic route
to Trinidad today -- instead of our normal route, we're going to head
towards Haiti, and then towards Aruba and Bonaire and follow the north
coast of Venezuela into Trinidad. This is because of the eruption of
the volcano in Montserrat this morning, which is spewing volcanic ash
into the atmosphere, and it is against FAA regulations to fly through
volcanic ash."
My friend and I were shocked, to say the least -- we hadn't heard anything about a volcano! But sure enough, a few hours later, we found ourselves flying past the ash cloud far in the distance; according to the pilot, the cloud had then reached 60,000 feet.
While it took forever for the international press to do a story on the collapse of the Soufriere Hills laval dome, I was finally able to find one. The good news is that all the inhabitants of Montserrat are expected to be safe.
Thank goodness.
(Photo courtesy of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory.)