TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Potable water

I've noticed quite a few folks mention that they buy water to have on the boat… This is new to me and not something I've ever given much thought before. As far as I'm aware our charter boat has two water tanks. Is it not acceptable to fill these tanks with water from a hose at the charter base? Is that water not potable? Is it not possible to re-fill along the way?

In my opinion it is not the water that you are getting out of the hose that is questionable, it is the tanks themselves. Since it is a charter boat you don't know how often the tanks are cleaned and they can carry bacteria, etc. We buy water to drink but use the boat water for everything else.

Got it. I think we'll be fine using the boat water then. Compared to our own 50+ year old boat with who-knows-how-old tank which we have no way of really cleaning…a 2020 model is going to be sparkly clean. I've never in my life gotten sick from drinking water, and I've drank from some questionable sources.

It’s also a issue of where the tanks are topped off. They may have been previously filled with water out of a cistern or other questionable source. Most charter companies do clean and disinfect the tanks on a schedule.

I concur with the previous posters, use the water in the tanks for showering, cleaning and for boiled water (coffee, pasta and the like) but get bottled water for drinking and for making ice. Just don't make the mistake I made (and others probably have, too) of boiling pasta in sea water. I thought I'd save some water and salt and use sea water instead; that was not a good idea at all the fish got my over salted capellini and I had to start over with fresh water and just a pinch of salt.

We bring a Britta filter and jug. Fill water bottles with this.
No issues and saves generating more plastic waste

This is brilliant! I think my husband will kill me though if I add one more thing to our "boat bag!"

Brita filters do not eliminate bacteria. Highly recommend buying your drinking water. Having the effects of bad water on your system is not much fun on a boat.

Good idea with the filter and jug, but we won't have space for that. Maybe we can bring a smaller camping type filter though… Bottled water just really doesn't sit right with me, for several reasons, but especially so in places like the BVI where waste management is a huge problem.

Is tap water in the BVI generally OK, or are there places where it's definitely not? I recently had an eye opening conversation with a friend about tap water and the consensus was that we take what we have here in BC for granted.

I would not drink the tap water most places in the BVI because it is often not city tap water. Even if it starts from the water plant, it is stored in cisterns or tanks when the water is actually flowing and then pumped to the tap. In CGB, I've been told we only have running city water on Tuesdays and then most Tuesdays only a couple of hours. In the US that would result in a boil order.

At Coconut Breeze Villas, we have recently finished a project to drain, clean, repair and reseal all of our cisterns. Then we installed new 2 stage sediment filters and a UV treatment system in each building. We collect water from each roof and store over 80,000 gallons on site. In fact, this week we are power washing one of the concrete roofs and repainting it to ensure that building is getting nice clean water!

I can tell you the water is good to drink at Quito's Inn too. They have a very similar treatment system!