TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums US VI and Puerto Rico Bad Behavior By Crewed Charters

Just saw a Facebook post from my friend, the captain of a charter cat in the USVI.

He arrived in Little Lameshur Bay today with guests. The guests entered the water to snorkel only to see a dozen egg shells and other garbage on the bottom under the boat left there by whoever was recently on the mooring.

He spoke to the bay host who told him that the last two boats on the mooring in question were both crewed charter boats. Shame on those crews.

Just because it may be “biodegradable” it is garbage and doesn’t belong in the water. Absolutely disgusting.

Relax, Cruz bay and Charlotte Amalie dump raw sewage into the waters on a daily basis. And the BVI flush everything into the sea.

Does that justify boats dumping food waste overboard Sail445? I don't think so. Imagine how our beautiful bays would look if everyone did this. I think its pretty sad.

Food waste isn’t the problem. The currents and tides take everything out to sea.
After a big rainfall the bays are infected with animal feces and other waste from the run off and a day later it’s out to sea

I could care less about eggshells ect.. They do no harm. What I do care about is anchoring on coral or other inappropriate places. Crewed boats are the biggest offenders.

I have sailed many years ,many places - from Panama, Throughout the Caribbean, most East coast harbors, the St Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes to Green Bay -- every single place had floating food waste and surely waste on the sea floor = every where there were boats there was trash in the water --- not always from boats I realize.
I am much more concerned over the Pacific Gyre.
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

My Own Confession:
As a restaurant owner in the USVI in the 70's I used to have fresh seafood shipped down from New England on Thurs. -- often sailing after closing Sun. night + Monday. We took the Cherrystones and Cotuit Oysters onboard to eat - and threw the shells overboard.
One morning a crowd of snorkelers were around us diving down and calling " all the shells are over here!"
We thought maybe the Tourism board would hire us to eat the seafood and spread the shells for the stateside tourists?

Was your restaurant in Compass Point ?

No -- in Town
The Compass Point restaurants back then were Bill Consolving's 'Fish Market' barge and Sandy's 'Drunken Shrimp' building

There doesn't need to be a competition over who was worse to the environment. I'll freely admit that my grandfather piped both gray and black water out of our family home on Frenchmans Bay ( Maine) out below mean high water. I'll also freely admit that my grandmother could and did send us out in a flat bottom dinghy with handlines and we'd come back in within a half hour with enough flounder to feed 18 or more. Fresh fissh !

Those days are done, but the arguments will persist about causation and correlation. It behooves every one of us to be the best advocate of improving our environment rather than pointing fingers and saying < neener neener neener> he.she.they started it. At some point, being an educated adult needs to mean something.

[quote=LocalSailor]No -- in Town
The Compass Point restaurants back then were Bill Consolving's 'Fish Market' barge and Sandy's 'Drunken Shrimp' building[/quote
The one I used to go to was on the left side when you entered, I don’t remember the name but I used to order their Coconut shrimp.
Where was your place in town? I used to have a slip at Yacht Haven