I've done the BVI to St. Martin trip many times (somewhere around 20 times round-trip). It will be 80NM against the prevailing winds and waves, so unless you plan on
flooring your engines (and bashing the boat/passengers) your estimate of 12 hours won't be enough for the crossing. Even on a 57' mono I will go for 14-16 hours, the smaller time only possible when the conditions are exceptional.
The St. Barths Ferry is nicknamed "St. Barfs Ferry" for a reason, so unless your visitors are seasoned mariners they might not be feeling too good upon arrival, so they might be too excited about getting on a boat and sailing right after they get there.
Since you are on a schedule with little leeway you should expect 6 foot seas from ENE and 15 knots or more, also from E or ENE. With that weather you are going to be beating and motorsailing and bashing into the waves for 16 hours. You can clear out of Gun Creek in the North Sound. I like to do night passages and will usually anchor off the
mooring field at Leverick in < 20 feet of
water in sand, or off Prickly Pear and then wake up at midnight, motorsail out of the sound and between Prickly Pear and Neckar and then, when I'm in clean air, hope that I can shut off the
engine. Usually I can't hold a direct course and have to decide how much I'm willing to tack and more often than not the
engine stays on for much of the
passage.
The anchorage at Basseterre on St. Kitts is quite rolly, but good enough to
head ashore to the
cruise ship terminal in order to clear in. I like White Bay just a couple of miles away, but there is nothing ashore there. The anchorage off
Nevis looks wide open but is surprisingly calm.
Anchoring is not allowed there as they have put over 200 (I can't
recall the exact number) of
mooring balls in place for cruiser use.
I'd always avoided Statia because of all the
oil tankers and big
storage tanks ashore, but when I finally did go there I loved it. The anchorage isn't great, but for anyone willing to do a hike the walk up to the new volcano caldera is a wonderful one.
When you sail to St. Croix all people aboard must be U.S. citizens or be LPRs; the visa waiver program for other nations that applies when you fly to the
USA doesn't apply to sailboats - some people aren't aware of this restriction and it can cause a lot of problems. If everyone is from the
USA then you've got no worries there.
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