Union Island, and Happy Island too

Salila
Peter Ablett
Sun 22 Apr 2012 14:31

12:35.78N  61:24.81W

21/4/2012

 

Just 5 miles from Tobago Cays is Union Island, which is the most southerly place to check out from St Vincent & the Grenadines. The bay is a lot of reefs with some water in between them, which makes for interesting navigating when being hassled by the boat boys promising “good mooring balls”. Doyles pilot book warns against these, and he proved to be right again. Usually the trusty Rocna anchor goes straight in first time, but there are places here with thin sand over hard coral bedrock, so it took four attempts. Three times I snorkelled down to find it only half bedded in, but the last go away from the reef edge went better. Whilst I was checking the anchor I looked at three of the trusty local buoys, which turned out to be an assortment of knotted ropes just tied loosely round boulders – no thanks.

 

On the reef is the famous “Happy Island” that we went to last night. Not many people can say they’ve built their own island, but Janti can. He created it on the reef from old conch shells, plus a liberal addition of concrete when the seas started to undo his hard work. Its now his home, a bar, and bbq restaurant. A great place to have a sundowner and very friendly. Later Janti come over to Salila for a drink, he’s quite the philosopher.