Clifton, Union Island

Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Wed 16 May 2012 22:23

12:35.828N 61:24.864

 

Wednesday 16th May 2012

 

Distance run:  6 nmiles

 

After a peaceful night’s sleep in Chatham Bay, Steve took the rib over to the nearby reef and tied it to a buoy whilst he went snorkelling.  I opted for a wallow in the water just off the back of the boat. 

 

Around mid-morning we lifted the anchor and motored around to Clifton, which is the main town of the island where we have to check out, and is located on the western shore.  This is unusual as it is the windward shore, but the harbour itself is protected by large reefs.  It is also, however, full of small reefs which have to be avoided, has deep water in between the reefs and is crowded with boats.  Having declined a boat boy’s offer of a mooring buoy on the way in, we decided to take up the offer when we saw the problems we might have anchoring, and all for the sake of an hour or two while we checked out.

 

Once the boat was safely moored, we took the rib ashore and went in search of customs at the end of the fishing dock.  We found it with no trouble and completed the paperwork, then were informed that we had to pay overtime charges because this was their lunch time!  We suggested that they probably should have told us that before we started the process as we would happily have come back an hour later, but this seemed to fall on deaf ears.   We were annoyed at first, but then decided that as visiting yachts are probably their best source of income, and then only for five months of the year, they probably needed those few dollars more than we would miss them. 

 

We then went to Immigration which we walked past twice before a very kind gentleman showed us right to the door, where we were stamped out of SVG.  Having wandered around the small town looking for Immigration, there didn’t seem much left to do, so we returned to the boat for lunch before heading off for Carriacou.

 

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Clifton, Union Island, Grenadines