TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Will November end up being high season early?

I booked a sail charter early this year for mid November. Looking at a few charter web sites today, it seems mid November boat availability is limited to a hand full of the smallest or largest boats in the fleet. Using summer through September as a low charter activity point, I'm thinking November may be the first opportunity to service pent up demand. Will I need to plan like it is Christmas/New Years? Will the businesses onshore up to speed? I'm not sure how to gauge demand and was hoping others here would have some insight.

Things are gearing up down here..restaurants opening up and I hear that charter boat demand is high. Jason can jump in on land based bookings as we are even advtersing our place yet ( soon). If you are serious I would pull the trigger..

I, too, am curious about how busy we should expect things to be. We are on charter 11/2 - 11/11. Should we be expecting full mooring fields? Are we going to need to arrive at anchorages early? I was hoping our early November timeframe would reward us with low crowds and stress free late afternoons.

Jason, Manpot, and those down there on charter right now.........can you provide us with a report?

It's busier than a normal October but I don't think you'll have issues with crowds. CGB is averaging 12 boats/night so there is plenty of room to anchor or pick up a mooring ball.

After our M4000 was damaged they are putting us on an older boat and claiming there are no other boats available. I think there are 18 M4000s in the Moorings fleet, so sounds pretty busy for November.

I just checked TMM's fleet availability for 11/13 and all but one 50 foot cat will be out. I guess the up side is it will be easy to get out of the marina.

We're here right now and I would say it's at least as busy as was typical this time of year pre COVID.

So…just how busy is that? ; )

What that means to me is:

Set your alarm to get a Boatyball at Cooper
Skip Great Harbor and head to Little Harbor on JVD
Don't be the guy pulling into Anegada at 4:30
Take a taxi to the Baths
Reserve ahead nice dinners out
Review anchoring procedures with the crew
Take the dingy to all snorkeling spots
Fingers cross for Full Moon Party

Data point: 7:08 AM all Anegada BBs are booked

All BB booked at 7:08? Although I am glad the islands have business I think I am really going to miss not having to worry about mooring balls. June was bliss.

There is need to worry at Anegada. The holding anchoring is as good as it gets. I am seeing moorings in poor condition so inspect as best you can after tied on. The Moorings at Marina Cay appear to have had no maintenance at all post Irma and should not be used.
G

No need for mooring balls at Anegada. Good anchoring..just dont go as far down as Neptune's to do it.

Understand there are no issues with anchoring at Anegada - we are comfortable anchoring - just referencing that the correlation with BBs gone early means way more boats around me now ….: I am going to have to get used to that 😂

Surprisingly, at 9:45 Cooper had 2 BBs available, however, Great Harbor JVD had zero. So maybe not crazy busy like Christmas/New Years, but perhaps busy like spring, pre-covid? I think trip reports of empty anchorages is over for now.

My comment was not on the necessity of BBs at Anegada, rather contrasting that we are back to people having to (or feeling they have to) jump on them early.

A long ways from our three previous covid trips where the problem was more that people were squatting on them and depriving the businesses of what little money they had coming in. The boaty ball system relies on them being fully occupied for enforcement.

We've been here many times in November, I would say it's comparably busy now to years past.