St. Thomas Vs Tortola Charter Departure/Return

[RickG]

Captainjay and Cuvee's comments align with our experience. We checked in at Jost Van Dyke Friday a week ago. No duty on any ships stores, we had meat and produce. We have never been charged duty and we go through BVI customs 3-4 times per year.

Cheers, RickG

[captstu]

My just finished vacation for 16 family on 2 vI Yacht charters out of compass put had 2 more days on the water than a similar bvi charter. Airport to boat, $11 and no intermediate hotel since we could board as late as we wanted. Last day on the water, met the airport cab and no wait to catch a transfer. Christmas Cove is a reach and Jost is also a close reach. More sailing for the same vacation. Extra customs fees -so what, the lower charter costs more than covered the fees.

Customs over lunch, no hassle for the family, they lunched while the two skippers paid the formalities.

[michaelratinter]

+1 Telesail

I provisioned in Red Hook. Sailed to JvD and checked in at Great Harbor. Sailed to Little Harbor and had a great lobster dinner at Sidney's Peace and Love.

After a few days we checked back into USVI at Cruz Bay and had a great lunch at Sun Dog.

Wow, this brought back some great memories...

Hi Molly W!

[capnmatt]

All good advice here. We recently chartered out of Puerto Rico and sailed to the BVIs and back. We checked in at West End and customs didn't ask about food - just the typical weapons and drug questions. Our charter was just before the cruising tax increase went into effect so it didn't affect us. However, given the increased cost and complexities involved in getting to the BVIs, I'd still opt to charter out of the USVI going forward. Since DYC doesn't have a base in the USVI I assume the boat will be a BVI registered vessel and you will pay the smaller cruising tax regardless.

Only thing I'll add is that with that large a crew I would request that DYC bring plenty of blank BVI immigration forms so that each person can complete their own before you go in to do customs. I had to fill out six forms while doing C&I on our last trip and it was not fun. Would have been relatively quick and painless had I completed the forms ahead of time.

Matt