TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Boatyball forum memories

Hopefully it’s ok to share the link.

I not trying to restart the thread

It made for interesting reading revisiting the thread..

http://www.traveltalkonline.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/187287/1.html

SO, I hope this is working well now? I haven't been back to the BVIs since 2018 but going this summer.

BoatyBall is working very well. Last week and this week have been extremely busy, so the balls are all taken minutes after 7 am.

Which is not an excuse to overnight on yellow dive moorings (saw two boats do that last night) or squat private moorings, saw two boats do that. A large Moorings cat took out our neighbor's private mooring, ala Wandering Hillbilly, which is even worse.

I see a lot more reports of bad boating behavior lately, both here and on the FB BVI Charter Chat group. I’m wondering if that’s a result of overcrowding, just plain old misbehavior, or some combination of the two. Thoughts?

Charter companies (Moorings at least) used Covid as an excuse to eliminate in-person chart briefings.

Charter companies have very little incentive to turn away customers, even when those customers are lying about or inflating their experience, and when business is slow they have even less.

BVI badly needs some kind of licensing requirement.

Surprised than BVI hasn't taken over the reservation system for their own as it is a money maker with really little to no effort...a shame to send all that dough stateside.

Another reason for the "behavior" is the following and publicity of that BVI FB page and the associated drama...I think more of it gets reported

Grateful for this page with good info and no drama

Obviously overcrowding has an impact. If every chartered boat could arrive at a mooring field at 5pm and find plenty of unoccupied FCFS balls, they might not resort to bad behavior. OTOH, boats still have anchors. As for squatting well-marked private balls or dive moorings, that's just poor behavior.

Moorings' briefings were pretty thin on our 2021 charter. For our upcoming July charter they've gone to online chart briefing to be completed by Skipper & First Mate as well as a health and safety briefing to be completed by all passengers.

I haven't reviewed these yet but even after 14 Moorings' charters I always like the refreshers and doing it before we leave home seems to be a less harried way to get the information

"Surprised than BVI hasn't taken over the reservation system", to which I would reply "Thank God". The BVI government has a poor record with software, notably the Covid entry portal and now the ED form. It's better off in private hands.. Some mooring fields may have their own system, but handing off to BB and having the money land in your bank account is likely attractive.

Speaking of software is the new customs entry portal in use or not?

Yeah, the online/video chart briefings by The Moorings is pretty lame IMHO. I guess it's a good base layer so to speak but it's a far cry from being able to interact with the briefer as they are going through things. Yeah, you could write down your questions and ask at the base when you get there but it's not the same as the "Classic" briefings of old.

Luckily, the collective wisdom of this board more than makes up for it.

As a frequent visitor down there I now look more for the boat briefing as to what is working and what isnt...and to see what is redlined and what may have changed

Agree the collective wisdom of this board (with no drama) to whom I am eternally grateful as I am always a student here

This board is far more friendly and helpful than the bvi charter chat group on facebook

Agree Warren...my buddy just had someone take his dinghy (accidentally) at Saba, posted there and got roasted for not locking etc...less than helpful especially as you cant lock at Saba but there is no holding back social media