sailing time is here: BVI (BVI to Saba)

[FarCry]

tomaz423 I know nothing about the immigration rules and regs you speak of. I did want to let you know that there is a customs and immigration office in the same complex (75 ft to the west) of where you will purchase ferry tickets to Tortola from downtown Charlotte Amalie. If you ask at the ticket counter they can point you the right way. Good luck.

[Zanshin]

FarCry/Tomaz - that is the office that I went to in order to inform myself about what it takes to clear into the USA on my boat from the BVI (I have a visa) - I just wanted to make sure that nothing untoward would happen - particularly if you ever get refused entry it goes on your permanent record with immigration and getting into the country thereafter means you will always get sent to secondary inspection which means you get to wait in line 2 times and get the 3rd degree from the immigration officials. Anyway, that office is nice and small so you will most likely be dealing with the same people on different occasions.
p.s. I was going to head to St. Maarten today, but a power cat just came back and told of E to ENE winds @ 20 with a 6 foot swell (the official weather is much less severe) so perhaps I'll try my luck with the USVI. If things go bad I might see if orange jumpsuits make me look slimmer.

[FarCry]

Zanshin PM Sent

If you make to St Thomas, it would be fun to meet you.

[Zanshin]

Still bouncing around the BVI and am awaiting my boat paperwor to complete, then I'll be off to St.Thomas! I'll PM you with details.

[tomaz_423]

Hi all.
Just a quick wrap-up regarding my charter and US immigration:
We had a wonderful vacation

Part one, US immigration office in Charlotte Amalie.
While waiting for a ferry to Tortola I went to the immigration office to ask about returning with the sailboat. A standard routine: There were 3 people in the office (not appearing to do much at that time), I was the only customer. They kept we waiting for 10 minutes. I believe they do it on purpose to see how you handle waiting and they can asses you. Then a very professional and polite officer approached me.
I showed him my Slovene passport with a Visa Waiver Card in it and I explained my intentions (ferry to BVI, charter a BVI flagged vessel, sail to USVI, sail back to BVI, return the boat and ferry to USVI again). He took a moment to think about and then said: You legally entered US on a a visa waiver program. As long you keep the green form in your passport you can exit and enter as you wish and how you wish (within 3 months total time). So, Yes, your plan is possible. He then consulted another officer, who confirmed we can do it. They only mentioned we should not let any other officer remove the immigration form from our passports - that would be a problem of course.
So, from what I was told it should be possible.

We did not try it as Sunsail in Tortola is not the best representation of that company (they did not find charts, original boat papers, ...) All just to keep us sailing not more then 5 miles from the base.

US officers were polite, they listened and understood my question, they knew how to answer, they even were completely aware of the laws in question. I was positively surprised. Even impressed.

[tomaz_423]

Part two: Sailing to Saba or islands around:
Sunsail played a big role of keeping us in BVI. First they did not "find" any charts except a chart of BVI. We did have a chartplotter on a boat and we did have a ThinkPad Notebook with electronic charts, but I do not sail in the area if I have no paper charts.
Then they somehow did not find original boat papers (which you need to go to French territories). We were promised to get all that in few days if we stick around.
And there was another reason: The wind would be directly on the nose and a (northerly) swell was much bigger then forecast in the first days.
Few days latter the "island time" kicked in with full force and those islands became just a too far away (why sail for 18 hours into the wind and chop to get to a bad anchorages on Saba if you can rather buy some more stakes in Spanish Town and drink sun downers on a hook in Gorda sound)
And for the trip to US VI: We were just to lazy to do all those border procedures. Why wait in a line to clear out/in if you can snorkel or swim.
And there was always one more bay we wanted to see....
So we stayed in BVI all 14 days. We probably made less miles in two weeks then we normally do in a week, but who counts...

[tomaz_423]

Part three: Sunsail
The base is definitely too big for them to handle.
There are lots of people working there, but most of them have no clue of what they are doing and the others are just fixing their mistakes.
If you want to see Sunsail in a good light go to a small base like Antigua or Kremik in the Adriatic.
If BVI base would be my first contact with Sunsail I would most likely never enter into any agreement with them.
They also do not care about the boats. I saw Sunsail skippers hitting the pillars, squeezing three boats in a two boat slip without fenders, hitting the pear with a boat, spilling diesel, ... And we only were there for a few hours.
The marina smells bad and I am almost sure they drain black watter into marina.
The chart breafing was not one-on-one as I am used to. It was reading a brochure in front of the class. I should skip it.
The boat breefing was for three boats at the time (so not all crew could attend) and the guy did not know about half of the systems (like: you turn the gas valve off here..oooh wait .... here .. Hmm, .... well . . . it is on a different location on every boat, do not worry, you will find it ..... Same fiasco with water, through hulls, etc.
On the last day when we returned there was a guy insisting on doing a boat breefing (he mixed the boats), on VHF they told us to take a slip XYZ, which of course was not empty, ... and I could go on and on.
Funny: every Sunsail base offers a survey at the end. Not on BVI. They know why.
The boat was not old but she was really badly beaten.
But at the end: who cares. Rum is cheap, the sea is nice, so we had a great time.

[Faster]

Thanks for the update, Tomaz. Sounds like you managed to have a good time despite the charter company's shortcomings.

We flew out of PR over the Virgins a few weeks ago on our way to Guadaloupe.... nothing looks too far apart there, that's for sure.

But, hey - sunshine, warmth, snorkeling, warm water - all in February - can't be that bad, can it???

[gtod25]

I too am amazed. Not surprised to hear about the Sunsail base. I used to move boats for them a few years ago. The BVI base was always an adventure.

[FarCry]

Glad to hear you had a good time and really pleasantly surprised to hear of the quality service you received at the immigration office on St Thomas.