Because we wanted to be In Trinidad a few days before our good friends Mike & Bev came down to visit us from Rochester, as well as because Kim & Daniel were flying back to Virginia for 2 weeks, we decided to bypass the other northern Grenadines and sailed right to Union Island - the most southern port of exit for the Grenadines. We were hoping to spend a couple of days in Union Island and 1-2 days in the Tobago Keys which are supposed to be beautiful small little islands surrounded by coral reefs.

After a 5 hour passage, we arrived to Clifton Harbor in Union island and spent the next hour trying to find a good place to anchor. Anchoring here was tricky as there was a reef right in the middle of the harbor, making the anchorage horse-shoe shaped. The Clifton Harbor is at the south-end of a long coral reef which we had to sail along side. Coming into the harbor is a well marked entrance. However, the anchorage has a reef on the east side which, while providing protection from waves, it did not provide any protection from the east wind. We spent the next 4 nights getting little sleep as the 25-32 knot wind howled nonstop and Kikuyu would swing from side to side, often getting too close to the reef on our starboard side and to a Catamaran boat on our port side that had dropped its hook late in the evening too close to us. The harbor was crowded and people just scrambled to get a good spot.

Finally, the day before we left, we and other boats around us moved our boats as a local man came to tell us that charter boats were arriving that day to tie off from small mooring balls that were near by. These balls, however, are most likely illegal and the cruising guide said it was perfectly alright to anchor near them. In fact, upon Kim challenging the man he did not answer as to whether the balls were legal and took off quickly. Rather than having yet another boat very close to us, we decided to re-anchor Kikuyu. Needless to say, Clifton Harbor gave us a chance to practice the art of anchoring amid reefs a few times.