Chatham Bay, Union Isand
Austins' Travels
Chris & Lynn Austin
Tue 7 Feb 2012 15:03
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12:36.304N 61:27.000W
We left Clifton as planned at midday on Saturday and
arrived at Chatham Bay just over an hour later and then spent a couple of very
frustrating hours trying to get our anchor dug in. This finally happened
adequately enough to hold us in strong gusts. Lynn snorkelled over the anchor
which is clearly visible and finally it dug in a bit – but not completely – and
we decided that was enough. We aren’t sure what the problem but it may be that
we chose a spot of very hard sand as we pushed right into the bay and very close
to the cliffs. We plan to experiment with different sites before leave to regain
confidence in the anchor’s ability to set (dig in) properly.
However, it was well worth the effort as this is such a
nice place. We were here 7 years ago and it was our favourite unspoilt spot so
we weren’t sure if it had changed for the worse during that time as we heard
that several bars had set up. But it is just as nice as ever. There are only a
couple of shacks that sell drinks and will cook or set up a beach barbeque for
you if you order in advance and there is one more upmarket bar.at the far end of
the beach. There were 20 yachts anchored on the first night and this is maybe a
few more than our earlier visit but it is a large bay with plenty of room. I
guess it generates just enough business for the bars to scrape by. Lynn took
Oliver snorkelling off the back of the boat (he was more interested in seeing
the anchor than the fish!) and then went off alone and saw an excellent
collection of fish including a couple of moray eels.The snorkelling even straight off the beach is great. On
Sunday we walked on the beach, swam and snorkelled then Sunday night our anchor
dragged so Monday morning we attempted to reset six times in three different
locations of beautiful sand (an easy sea bed to set an anchor) before giving up
and returning to Clifton to tie up to an anchor buoy. It’s ridiculous that our
super new generation expensive Spade anchor can’t set itself even when we try
different techniques. Lynn was able to watch its every move by snorkelling above
it as it stopped but didn’t dig in and then dragged when there was a gust of
wind. So we have decided to go down to Grenada (where we can replace the anchor)
which we had planned to do within the week anyway.
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