# Chartering the US VI



## eddie nelson (Jul 8, 2011)

I know everyone talks about chartering threw the BVI but has anyone chartered threw the USVI. I was thinking it would be easier to charter in the us and not have to worry about the ferry. It would be nice to just fly straight their and taxi to our charter. Any suggestions? I had a guy tell me it would be easier to charter out of Red Hook. Im planning on going the first of April.


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## FarCry (Apr 21, 2007)

There are three charter companies on St Thomas. 
1) Island Yachts in Redhook which charters only Island Packets
2) VIP a little further west. No idea what is in their inventory at this time
3) CYOA much closer to the airport. They have a mix of monohulls and cats


In a PM I would be glad to answer any questions and provide my opinions on each of the operations I have listed above. I would be glad to give you some itinerary suggestions for St Thomas, St John and the surrounding smaller islands.

You might also consider going to Traveltalkonline dot com in the forum section and do a search with the name of each of the companies listed above to read comments that are posted as well.


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## fallard (Nov 30, 2009)

We've chartered twice in the BVI and 8 times in the USVI over the past dozen years. There are 3 reasons we've chartered out of the USVI for the past 6 years straight:
1. You can get to St. Thomas on a "real" airplane (no need for a puddle jumper) and you avoid the possibility of missing the last ferry from St. Thomas to Tortola if your plane is late.
2. The USVI has some really nice, QUIET bays with extensive hiking trails and with Park Service moorings at $15/night on St. John. 
3. Our preferred charter operation is family-run Island Yachts in Red Hook. Their Island Packet Yachts are a cut above the Beneteaus and Jenneaus IMHO. Also, Red Hook has services (grocery, liquor, restaurants, dive shop, pharmacy, Subway, etc.) literally at the Yacht Harbor. 

There is a downside to chartering out of the USVI, which is the necessity of customs/immigration stops if you go to the BVI--which you should, especially if you haven't been to the Virgin Islands before. You don't check out of the USVI, but you do check in (and out at the same time) in the BVI at either Jost van Dyke, Sopers Hole (West End), Road Town, or even Spanish Town). You also must check back into the USVI at Cruz Bay if you are going back to Red Hook). The BVI check in/out process is a minor inconvenience, but can take an hour or two, including boat handling. The USVI check in is quick, but typically involves mooring in Caneel Bay and taking your dinghy into Cruz Bay.

A couple of other points: If you've seen the BVI, you can stay with the USVI and avoid the customs scene altogether. St. John, which is mostly a national park, provides excellent snorkeling and--compared to the BVI--relative peace and quiet. Also, we're comfortable with the Island Packets, particularly when the wind picks up, but they are relatively heavy and are not likely to be mistaken for racing boats. Another option out of the USVI is the Spanish Virgins.


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## eddie nelson (Jul 8, 2011)

Hey fallard thanks for the info. We have never been to VI so i want to check everything out. How long of a sail is it from Red hook to Anagada? And which area of the bvi would be the easiest to check into customs? Farcry told me that the rolex and bvi regattas are the week that we are going (March 30-April 10), so im sure there is going to be considerably more boat traffic. We are looking for mostly secluded snorkeling areas with the occasional dinning.

eddie


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## fallard (Nov 30, 2009)

Anegada is best approached from Virgin Gorda to get a good angle on the wind. If you were to charter from Red Hook, with a charter starting at noon, a 9 miles motorsail (close to the wind) would get you to a good first night stop would at Leinster Bay. You can snorkel at Waterlemon Cay when you arrive. The next day, you might hike to the Anneberg sugar mill ruins before heading out for a 20 mile trip (motor/motor sail) into the wind to get to Thomas Bay/Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor, where you need to check in with customs/immigration. You can anchor or moor out or take a slip in the Yacht Harbor. The skipper goes alone and brings signed copies of paperwork and passports for each crew member and pays the cruising, immigration, and BVI park (day)mooring fees. Early the next morning, you would hustle to get a day mooring at The Baths and spend a couple hours at this "must see" place. You can't land your dinghy, so be prepared for a short swim in from a dinghy mooring to shore. Great snorkeling and beaches at either end of the rock formations.

Next, you need to decide if you want to sail 20 mile sails to Anegada, where you ought to stay 2 nights. This would allow you to explore the snorkeling on the north side. But if there is a significant breeze, you might find the current on the North side uncomfortable for snorkeling. At least you can enjoy the extensive beach from the mooring field at Setting Point all the way past Pomato Point. We really liked the pricey Caribbean lobster at the Anegada Reef Hotel. You can also get a decent fish dinner at Neptunes Treasure.

By now you'd be running out of time for a 7 day charter and would miss some of the interesting sights in the BVI. If you want to go for Anegada, perhaps you ought to go for a 10 day (or longer) charter.


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## eddie nelson (Jul 8, 2011)

I think your right about the 10 day charter. I will need to see about the kids missing school. I want to be able to take my time and relax. If I can't do Anagada I guess I'll have a good exscuse to go back!lol I should have some charts within the next 2 weeks so I'll have a better lay of the area and distances. Thanks again for the help.

Eddie


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## fallard (Nov 30, 2009)

If you've only got a week (7 full days, noon-noon), here's my suggestion for an itinerary.
Day 1 (early afternoon off the dock): Leinster Bay, St. John--snorkel, dinner aboard
Day 2 snorkel (Waterlemon Cay and off the beach); hike to Anneberg ruins, more snorkeling, later short hike to the east to overlook Leinster Bay and Tortola and the Drake Channel. Dinner aboard.
Day 3 sail to Great Harbour, Jost van Dyke for customs/immigration; skip Foxy's if you have young kids and move over to Little Harbour for a mooring and dinner ashore at one of the 3 waterside, very casual restaurants.
Day 4 Beat to Monkey Point, Guana Island for snorkeling and a lunch stop; sail/motor to Marina Cay for a mooring and dinner ashore at Pusser's. You can also snorkel off their beach. You can also get water at their dock.
Day 5 Beat to Thomas Bay (mooring) or better yet, Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor (slip with water available, which you'll need if you didn't top off at Marina Cay). You can take a long walk or taxi to The Baths from the Yacht Harbor. Wear your bathing suits and bring backpack(s) for towels, etc. You could beat directly to the day moorings for the Baths, but be prepared to circle awhile for an available mooring. You might then to the Spanish Town area for mooring or slip. 
Day 6 Do the Baths from your boat on the way out and then stop at Deadman's Bay, Peter Island, for a lunch stop. Make sure you anchor is set if you go ashore. Read up on Dead Chest (island of Treasure Island fame as Deadman's Chest). Proceed to Norman Island for a mooring near the north edge of The Bight, where you can snorkel off your boat; hike and dinner ashore if you prefer.
Day 7 snorkel the Caves on your way out of The Bight and then proceed to Caneel Bay for a mooring and dinghy ride into Cruz Bay to check back into the US. Lots of shops and restaurants in Cruz Bay.
Morning of Day 8: Sail back to Red Hook to return the boat before noon. The mooring base will want you to meet you at the fuel dock.

If you do charter with Island Yachts, check out their sleep aboard rate for the day you arrive.

Your school age kids will love the Baths and the Caves and all the snorkeling. You can do Anegada some other time.

Also, check Google Earth, which has a ruler so you can figure out distances. Keep in mind that the wind has East in its label, so you will be beating or motoring when you go in a generally easterly direction. I found the Imray-Iolare map A231-232 to be very useful for planning and logging the trips I've taken to the USVI (except St. Croix)and the BVI.


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## eddie nelson (Jul 8, 2011)

fallard tell me about the usvi. Just looking at a map of that whole area and it seems like there are a ton of places to sail to around st thomas. Have you ever been to tabago? Looks like a cool place to visit. Honestly it looks like an easy 7 or 10 days of sailing around the usvi. Hell i dont have to see everything in one trip and dont want to. Im thinking i need to save the bvi for another trip.?( got some time to think about it)

eddie


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## eddie nelson (Jul 8, 2011)

I take that back fallard i like your itinerary the way it is. The possibilities are endless!


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## fallard (Nov 30, 2009)

If you want to spend more time in the USVI, you should target St. John. Check www.nps.gov/viis/planyourvisit/upload/MooringGuide.pdf for boating information, but your major choices involve the north side of St. John, from Lynd Point to Leinster Bay, and the south side, primarily Salt Pond and Lameshur Bays. Salt Pond Bay has a nice beach, sea turtles and a 1.5 mile hike to Ram Head, and is one of my favorites. The north side can be subject to swells--something you want to be aware of in the Virgin Islands--in places like Hawksnest Bay and to the east, as well as the BVI. It can be very difficult to handle a dinghy on a beach that is subject to the swells. You will find that an anchorage can be very rolly when the swell is running and make it difficult to get a good night's sleep. The charter bases can advise which bays to avoid.

You might pick up a cruising guide to the Virgin Islands by the Scotts or Steven Pavlidis. Your charter company will probably have a copy of the Scott guide aboard, but you will find it helpful for advance planning purposes. If you are considering chartering out of St. Thomas, you might allow an extra day to explore Charlotte Amalie. We typically stay over at a guest house type accommodation before heading home.

A final note: We started our Caribbean chartering in the Virgin Island and moved on to St. Martin (including Anguilla and St. Barts) and then Antigua, thinking we would keep moving along the Island chain to South America as time went on. However, we ended up back in the Virgins, which we find more accommodating to bareboaters. You can spend years exploring the USVI, BVI, and Spanish Virgins and not get bored.

As you move further south in the Caribbean chain, you will find higher winds and seas and longer distances between some of the anchorages. We find the winds in the Virgins are generally as much as we want to deal with.


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## FarCry (Apr 21, 2007)

eddie nelson said:


> fallard tell me about the usvi. Just looking at a map of that whole area and it seems like there are a ton of places to sail to around st thomas. Have you ever been to tabago? Looks like a cool place to visit. Honestly it looks like an easy 7 or 10 days of sailing around the usvi. Hell i dont have to see everything in one trip and dont want to. Im thinking i need to save the bvi for another trip.?( got some time to think about it)
> 
> eddie


I'm not Fallard even though he has been doing a very good job providing information.

There aren't that many really great places to go around St Thomas especially when compared to St John. On St Thomas, Brewers Bay and Magan's Bay are nice. Depending on conditions Lindbergh can be too. Just off St Thomas, Water Island and Great St James offer some great opportunities for an overnight. For a day stop, Buck Island is fantastic.

The Tobago Islands are outside of the USVI and in the BVI waters. I have spent some time there on really flat days which only happen a handful of times a year. There are some very good snorkeling spots but typically the swell and current are too much for me to reccommend that area as a destination. To go there legally you have to clear into the BVI, probably at Jost, then sail to either of the Tobagos to snorkel, dive, etc. Then you probably are going to end up beating back to Jost to spend the night or sailing over to St John to clear back into the USVI. It's off the beaten path and not a spot that is normally a comfortable place to spend the night.


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## Lennie Cantor (Aug 12, 2011)

*usvi*

Add Content


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## rundugrun (Feb 1, 2010)

I know this thread is a couple of months old, but to the OP (Eddie): If you only have 7 days, you might want to just sail around St. John, especially if this is your first charter and you have kids aboard. Possible itinerary could be:

Day 1 Maho or Francis Bay (walk up the stairs and get dinner at the Maho Bay Camp restaurant)
Day 2 Francis again (your kids might really like the beach) or sail around the point to Leinster. Hike up to the sugar mill ruins, snorkel around Waterlemon Cay
Day 3 Salt Pond Bay on the south side of St. John (go ashore hike to the salt ponds, do some snorkeling, too)
Day 4 Little Lameshur on the south side of St. John (nice beach)
Day 5 sail back to Leinster (you can get a taxi to Cruz Bay from the road near Mary Creek and enjoy a nice dinner "in town")
Day 6 Christmas Cove (good snorkeling and close to Red Hook for last night)
Day 7 Back to Red Hook... 

Yes, it's not much sailing... But sometimes you find a place and you want to stay more than one day or the kids get bored and want to snorkel, hike or play in the water... 

Either way, you'll have fun!


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## eddie nelson (Jul 8, 2011)

Hey thanks for the input Run. Ive had sometime to think about it and decided to wait till late May when the kids are finished with school for the summer. Farcry lives in St Thomas and we're going to hook up with him for a 10 day and hit the BVI and possibly Anagada. That being said we are going to be chartering out of St Thomas so i would love to see the usvi also. We gonna squeeze everything we can into 10 days.lol


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## EliotR (Oct 23, 2011)

I just got back from Tortola...The ferry is no big deal...its worth it


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## rundugrun (Feb 1, 2010)

eddie nelson said:


> Hey thanks for the input Run. Ive had sometime to think about it and decided to wait till late May when the kids are finished with school for the summer. Farcry lives in St Thomas and we're going to hook up with him for a 10 day and hit the BVI and possibly Anagada. That being said we are going to be chartering out of St Thomas so i would love to see the usvi also. We gonna squeeze everything we can into 10 days.lol


That's a good plan, Eddie. With 10 days you'll have enough time to spend a couple of days around St. John and even get up to Anegada. Our last 10 day trip was USVI and BVI... We had a blast.


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## denverd0n (Jun 20, 2008)

FarCry said:


> In a PM I would be glad to...


Why not post? The whole point of a forum like this is to share information. I'm sure everyone would like to partake of your experiences and knowledge.


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## tropicalfever (Jun 20, 2006)

denverd0n said:


> why not post? The whole point of a forum like this is to share information. I'm sure everyone would like to partake of your experiences and knowledge.


+2


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## FarCry (Apr 21, 2007)

denverd0n said:


> Why not post? The whole point of a forum like this is to share information. I'm sure everyone would like to partake of your experiences and knowledge.


What specifically would you and Tropicalfever like to know?

If you go back up a few posts to #11 on 8-14-11, you will see that I did share information regarding my experiences and knowledge about the areas the OP requested.


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## denverd0n (Jun 20, 2008)

First post. Resurrect a two-year-old thread to bash CYOA. This makes it look like you are surfing around the net, looking for places where you can post your negative experience. Also, no information about when you were on this charter, what exactly the crew or owner did to be rude, and so on. Finally, you mention crew, but then say that you fixed the mechanical problem yourself. So, crewed charter or bareboat?

No offense, but I am more believing of a review when it comes from someone who has been posting here for a while. And for negative reviews I like to see a lot of specific details about what the problems were.


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## eddie nelson (Jul 8, 2011)

Well Im really sorry you had such a bad experience with CYOA. We chartered with them last June (12') and absolutely loved them. Met with the owner and pretty much their entire staff and they were extremely professional and polite. We chartered a 48' cat and hired a captain to help me with boat. He was very informative of the boat and the whole island chain. I'm actually shocked that you such a bad experience. I guess anything can happen with a man made anything but the staff were friendly and helpful.


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## denverd0n (Jun 20, 2008)

sail to wherever said:


> So, my question to the reader, what is the motivation behind you questioning someone elses experience.


My, my. Getting a little defensive, aren't we?

I didn't question your experience. All I did was make an observation, ask for a couple of details, and then comment on how I, personally, weigh the credibility of postings such as yours. I don't doubt that you had a bad experience. On the other hand, I've seen good reviews of CYOA, too. I will keep your comments in mind, along with others that I've seen, and come to my own conclusions based on my own assessment of the validity of each of the different reviews.


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## captainjay (Oct 11, 2007)

I am reluctant to get into this and I won't be drawn into a troll war but let me lay this out. This customer did charter from us back in 2008 though VI Sailing. While his recollection of his alleged problem seems perfect he actually can't remember which boats his group rented. They had an Athena 38 and a Jaguar 36, the two smallest and least expensive cats that we had at the time. Perfectly capable boats but not the Queens of the fleet. Recently he contacted us and demanded a substantial discount/credit for issues he claims to have had in 2008. Despite his perception now that we are the worst charter company in the world he still wanted to book a boat with us as long as we gave him this credit. We went through our very detailed records, asked VI sailing to do the same and could find no history of his issues. Our core staff has been the same for years as well and what ever issues he had didn't rise to the level of anyone remembering them. We did offer him a couple of discounts and when he decided that wasn't a deep enough discount he has gone on a smear campaign against CYOA.

While we try to make everyone happy this guy is outside our ability to satisfy. We aren't perfect but we are good at our job and the numerous repeat customers that I see year in and year out are a testament to that. 
Jay Pennington
CYOA Charters


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## eddie nelson (Jul 8, 2011)

2008? Are you freaking kidding me?! He's just now bitching about something that happened in 2008? What a loser? 2008? No way!! Well back in 1991 I took out Mary Anne. Wined her, dined her but didnt get to 69 her. I think Im going to contact her for my money back for the dinner.


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## denverd0n (Jun 20, 2008)

Interesting. My first question to him was when this happened. No wonder he didn't want to answer that. Five years later, and NOW he complains. Wow.


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