Last week, 'Persephone' returned to the BVIs. What a disappointment ! The place is over-run with tourists and worse...hundreds of charter boats. Cane Garden Bay is (was ?) a large, white sandy, crescent shaped beach which Jimmy Buffett beautifully describes in song. The Bay is now jambed with twenty-two (yes 22!!) beach bars//tee shirt-junk shops built right on the sand at the waters edge. In front of each junk shop are white plastic beach chairs three and four rows deep; which rent for $5 USD per day. There are literally HUNDREDS of these chairs littering the beach. Think of the seating at an outdoor cathedral for hundreds of pasty white sun worshippers. (You can actually hear them sizzling in the tropical sun as they try and get a deep tan in a couple of hours.....I want the a Solarcane distributorship for CGB alone...I could get rich, quick !!) "Where do all these people come from" I asked ? I learned that passengers of huge cruise ships are bussed from Road Town across the island to CGB for day trips. The place is just over-run with the 'condo-commando' types serenaded by a cacophony of different, loud music from each of the 22 junk shops. Just a nightmare !!
So, we put CGB astern vowing never to return and circumnavigated Tortola clockwise to find less crowded harbors and good snorkeling areas. Each and every harbor is now wall to wall mooring balls...set up primarily for the charter boat industry; which rent out between $25 and $30 US per night !! What a rip-off !! Simply there is no room to anchor as the prime anchorages are a carpet of moorings at outrageous prices. The place is so crowded, you can't get away from the crowds even while snorkeling....
So, we decided to move on to Norman Island in the southwest corner of the island chain; hoping to lose the crowds...wrong ! "The Bight" at Norman is a deep, V-shaped anchorage with a great beach. When we arrived, again we found the entire anchorage carpeted with mooring balls....well over 100 ! Once we hooked up, I started counting charter boats from companies such as Moorings, Sunsail, and Horizons. I conservatively counted 81 chartered boats in this ONE anchorage...all willing to pay big bucks for moorings and beers ashore. (With 81 charterers boats in one anchorage in one night....how many hundreds of charter boats are plying the BVIs ?) The charter business is a HUGE industry in the BVIs which has swallowed the natural beauty and laid back nature of the island. What is left is a floating trailer park with a Disney atmosphere. We couldn't wait to GET OUT...or should I say escape !! We will never return to the BVIs; there is NOTHING there for cruisers.
On Sunday, Persephone fled back to the sanity of St. John. What a relief to be free of the maddening crowds of charterers. Two-thirds of St. John is a US National Park. Although there are mooring balls in most of the bays, they are very limited in number, and affordable ($7.50 per night). As St. John is US, the hordes of charters in the BVIs must clear US Customs to enter St. John and then re-clear back into the BVIs. Most charters are unwilling to clear in and out of customs, so St. John remains relatively free of the hordes of charterers. There is such a stark contrast between St. John and the BVIs....one is a shining example of resource management through the US Parks system versus the unregulated commercialization of an entire island nation by the charter industry.
For once, the US really got it right by preserving our chunk of paradise in the Caribbean !!
Whether Mooring Balls are installed as cash cows or to limit anchoring in ecologically sensitive areas it is the way of the future.
ReplyDeleteYou see them more and more as you come south, as you know. The Saintes are the newest but they are here in Grenada as well. How long before theses hurricane locations decide to only allow moorings?
I think we are enjoying the end of the "good days".
Go west old fart.
Having spent several months in Baker Bay, just to the right of CGB as you look in during the mid 90's, I can grieve the loss of a beautiful anchorage. We had been to the BVI in the late 80's on a charter, and they had given us a chart of all the places you CAN'T go.. When we came back on our own boat in the early 90's we stayed exclusively at these locations.
ReplyDeleteNow that we are in out late 60's and having discovered that cruising is more work that our bodies want, We not bare-boat. We do places like the San Juan islands above Seattle, and this year we head to Comex 100 miles above Victoria BC and then across the Northern passage to Desolation Bay Trips are always taken in Sept. the water is at it warmest, mid 70's, the kids are in school and the rates have gone down. It's all about being along in an anchorage.
While you are in St Johns You might want to look up Mike and Crystal Gilich on "Dancing Dolphin" catamaran They are rebuilding the sailing bucks. He as a master electrician and she as nurse in a local medical operation. I met them in the early 90's Tell them George Capra sent them. I also have friends on Water Island. The Dunakey's Mary and Dave live at 35 Water Island St. Thomas, USVI 00802, Home 340-777-4054 They have a beautiful home there and love sailing guests. Again we met them in Grenada in the early 90's and have revisited in 2004. Make them take you to the Sunday dinner on the beach.
I've enjoyed reading your Blog. Have fun.
George
Bummed to hear that BVI's have lost their peaceful appeal! Guess USVI will have to remain my paradise!
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