Zoe Palmer travels to the spectacularly beautiful Caribbean islands of St. Lucia, Martinique and Montserrat. Although everyone's picture postcard image of the Caribbean is of beaches  and palm trees, contrastingly these islands also offer offer volcanic mountainous terrain and are ideal for trekking.
On the island of St. Lucia, Zoe hikes up the majestic Gros Piton mountain with local guide Jimmy Haynes. Sacred to the island's first inhabitants - the Arawak Indians - 800 metre high Gros Piton was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. The mountain's summit provides fantastic views of the entire island and the Caribbean Sea beyond.
Zoe continues her journey with a 90-minute ferry ride to the French-speaking island of Martinique. Zoe passes through the capital Fort-de-France en route to the town of St. Pierre, the former economic capital of Martinique. St Pierre has a tragic history, having been devastated by a massive volcanic eruption in 1902 which killed virtually the entire population of 30,000 in the space of a few  minutes. Offshore at least 18 ships in the harbour were sunk by the eruption. Zoe goes diving amongst the wrecks with local diver Jacky Imbert and together they explore one of the the largest shipwrecks in the bay: The Roraima. Sadly nearly 50 passengers and crew members on board The Roraima lost their lives when she shop sank during the eruption.
Zoe continues her journey on the island of Montserrat, which has also been devastated by much more recent volcanic eruptions in 1995 and 1997. The southern half of the island closest to the Montserrat Volcano - an including the abandoned former capital Plymouth - is now an exclusion zone. Access to the area is severely restricted given the imminent danger of further eruptions and lethally hot pyroclastic flows of volcanic ash and rocks which can hurtle down the volcano at speeds of well over 100km per hour.
 Zoe views the ruins of Plymouth from the safety of a boat moored offshore. She then takes a helicopter ride with the Montserrat Volcano Observatory director Roderick Stewart and also receives special permission to enter the exclusion zone on foot. Travelling with local radio presenter Rose Willock, Zoe travels on horseback into the Belham Valley area which was devastated by the volcano. She gets a close-up view on the ground of the destruction in the former capital Plymouth.
Just days after the filming of the programme, the Montserrat volcano erupted once again. Within minutes, a deadly pyroclastic flow surged into Plymouth and the surrounding area. Luckily Zoe and the rest of the team had got out just in time. |
