Three Little Words: Hot Hot Hot

It wasn't always this way. Before the Soufriere Hills Volcano began to rewrite the island's geologic history, the British territory was home to about 12,000 and was the Caribbean's pretty little secret.

Plymouth -- a hub of restaurants, shops, expensive homes, schools and a new hospital -- welcomed yachts and their rich occupants, who found the paparazzi-free streets a welcome respite. Beatles producer George Martin opened Air Studio on a hillside in 1979; Sunny remembers seeing such musicians as Eric Clapton and Jimmy Buffett sucking down beers in Plymouth pubs. Visitors could hop ferries and several airlines, which served the now-ravaged Bramble Airport.

Today, Sunny notes, a little more than 5,000 people remain, many of them Brits and American expats who've scooped up real estate. There's no ferry service, though the $18.5 million Gerald's Airport opened in 2005; its sole tenant is Winair, which can fly only 19-seat prop planes in. As a result, fares are expensive, schedules often change (my flight over from Antigua was canceled at the last minute) and luggage is frequently delayed.

The situation on the island, Sunny says softly, "is pretty fragile."

* * *

I'm finishing up a pile of fish and chips at Gourmet Gardens when the restaurant's owner, Mariet Walters, ambles over and clears her throat.

"How did you find us, anyhow?" she asks, eyes narrowing.

Huh? I got directions from my innkeeper.

"No, how did you find this island? Hardly anyone comes here, and for no good reason. If it weren't for the volcano, it'd be paradise."

Like just about everyone I've met on this island, Walters is friendly, outspoken and a junior vulcanologist. Before long, the Dutch transplant is talking about her 17 years on Montserrat, throwing in phrases like "lateral blast" and "pyroclastic flow" and "my aching back." She has shoveled her share of fallen ash, which accumulates like snow and nibbles away at her business.

"I've been through thick and thin lately, mostly thick. Every time there's another event on the mountain, I'm reaching for my checkbook," she says, happily pointing out that the last major "event" was in April 2007.

Without asking, she grabs my leftovers and begins to crumble them. After she tosses them into the yard a few feet away, a half-dozen chickens race over and begin to feast. One breaks from the pack and starts pecking a lumbering green iguana the size of a trombone.

I watch the bird toy with the reptile, an easy entertainment on an island full of them. I've filled my days lounging on the beach at Woodlands Bay, where the snorkeling is amazing and the black sand scorching. I've hiked on verdant mountain trails that go from flat to vertiginous in 100 yards, and I've stopped to sip from Runaway Ghaut, a spring alongside the main road. It's said that drinking the water (perfectly safe island-wide, by the way) ensures your return.

After a harrowing drive up to the Montserrat Volcano Observatory, I get my closest peek yet at Soufriere Hills. A film chronicling the eruptions is terrific, but the employee at the front desk is even more illuminating. Like Walters, she has done her share of ash-kicking . . . and she's tired of it.

"I got over being afraid of that thing long ago," she says. "Now I'm just annoyed by it."

Indeed, islanders seem eager to move on, even though the volcano hasn't made up its mind to do likewise. At the new Montserrat Cultural Center, I look over an exhibit on long-term plans to turn the Little Bay area -- now a mash of dilapidated buildings and dirt roads on the northwest coast -- into the island's capital. There'll be a marina, a cathedral, shopping promenades, parks, fountains.

Great for the island and these people I've come to adore, no doubt, but I already feel a tinge of loss for this Caribbean the way it used to be.