Reports, Roles and Responsibilities <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/usflag.gif" alt="" />
I feel indebted to this board for the advice and knowledge gained over a six month study prior to our 1st ever charter. I’m posting this report, for what it is worth, as a bit of pay back.
It might be helpful for you to know our qualifications and perspective so that you may judge whether or not your situation is similar to ours. I expect that only people who are new to chartering a sailboat will find anything useful in this report – there are many “experts” here who have been there, done that, lots of times.
Qualifications:
I earned a bareboat certification specifically for this trip, own a West Wight Potter and have sailed inland lakes for a few years. I also have many years of powerboat experience on inland lakes and Lake Michigan. My wife only had experience on our Potter before our trip. We had never picked up a mooring ball together but we got real good, real fast. No problem.
Perspective:
My perspective is akin to “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. In other words, we each play a part in the vacation “play”.
Our role is to be awed by the beauty of the Islands, to be respectful of the ecosystem, to enjoy the food and services provided by the Islands “players” who are employed by the charter groups, resorts, taxi companies, stores, restaurants et al. The belongers. We are guests, their islands are being shared and our role includes paying for this privilege. Cheerfully. And we did. No cutting corners or skimping on tips. I’ve read a few of what I consider to be jaded remarks alleging a “systematic way of moving money from tourists to belongers”. Of course! It’s the economy “play” and we all have our roles.
The belongers and or employees role in all this, in my opinion, is to provide food and services and boats and moorings and advice and laughter and cheerfulness to our vacation. And we found that in abundance. Everywhere.
Airline - American
Even though one of our connecting flights was canceled prior to our trip, our experience with American Airlines was totally positive. We encountered friendly staffers on every leg and pleasant attitudes were the norm. We even almost hit a trifecta: our schedule down had us leaving St. Louis, connecting in Orlando [with a 2.5 hour layover] and then on to San Juan and Tortola. Our flight from St. Louis to Orlando was a few minutes early and we landed RIGHT next to a departing gate for a different American Airlines flight to San Juan. The plane was in the boarding process. On a whim I approached the American Airline rep at the gate and said “my wife and I have tickets on your 1:10 flight to San Juan, do you have room for us on this plane”? The rep asked “did you check your luggage”? I said “nope”. She smiled and said “come on downJ”. Next thing you know we are in San Juan almost three hours early and trying to pull another rabbit out of the hat to get to Beef Island early too - but it didn’t work out. Not for lack of trying though, with wonderful support from American. Since they had cancelled the flight from San Juan to Beef Island earlier, I had asked them to pay for our tickets on another airline so we wouldn’t get in real late - and they did. So we arrived when we planned, were greeted by a Moorings associate and everything worked fine. Our trip back included a 5-hour layover in San Juan, I took a suggestion from this board and we relaxed at the El San Juan Hotel while we waited. No problem.
Charter Company - Moorings
I would award them the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award if I could. We enjoyed world class everything, including attitudes and people skills. The technical stuff is easy but making us feel welcome, like a part of the family and a friend is the tough part. Moorings helped us have the best vacation we had ever enjoyed, actually to live a dream in every respect, from A to Z. I know that sounds smarmy but I also know how hard it is to run a company that well. What a class act.
Sailing Experiences and Route
Our original plan was Road Town to Cooper to Marina Cay to North Sound to West End to Jost to Norman - pretty much the typical route listed here many times. Our actual plan was slightly different. My 1st mate - wife hadn’t been on a 33 foot sailboat before and she doesn’t sail on our boat when the wind is over 15-18 mph. On our uphill climb we washed the windows a little bit and that scared her. Since her enjoyment was as important to me as my own, our route changed to a downhill ride from Marina Cay to Sopers, a motor to Cane Garden Bay [got lots of pictures of tourists since the cruise ship was there - which made us appreciate our sailboat even more] a sail back down to Sopers because I ran us out of water, a sail to Jost, a motor back up to Road Harbor for a slip overnight, a motor to the Baths and up to Virgin Gorda, a sail to Marina Cay again and a sail back down to Road Town on our last morning. We did miss Norman Island - so we’ll have to go back. Safety and comfort were my first priorities. Again, our situation may not be the same as yours - it might not have been pure sailing but it was pure fun. Bonus: she wants to go back.
Random Acts of Kindness
We were made welcome by a group of TTOLers at Spaghetti Junction on our first evening in Tortola. I barged in and introduced myself, and the next thing you know we are sitting at their table like old friends. Trish had set it up, we met a couple from Michigan who owned their boat and Cheryl from Purple Pineapple Villa Rentals [a TTOL sponsor] was also there. Nice folks.
We anchored for the first time in Great Harbor in 35 feet. I put down 150 feet of chain and wound up about 35 - 40 feet from a boat named “Sailbad the Sinner”. The boats’ dingy was named “Little Sinner”. Heheheheh
I called over to Sailbad, told him what I had done and asked if he thought we would be ok. Now I know all about the attitude that you are the captain of your own ship and must make your own decisions and so on and so forth, but on one hand you have a deeply tanned skipper on his own boat and on the other hand you have a reddish skipper on a charter boat. It isn’t too hard to figure out who is the most experienced in that group. So, Sailbad says “we’ll just watch it for awhile” and I say “fine”. About a half hour later Sailbad calls over “you’re going to be fine, no problem”. I thanked him; we went ashore, came back and slept very well. The next morning I called over to him, “hey Sailbad - we’re still here” and gave him the big thumbs up. He grinned and said “I knew you would be”. He also alerted us when he saw some dolphins in the harbor. How very cool.
On our first night at Cooper, we grabbed the first ball we saw. “James” came up and I paid for the mooring but after a little while I decided that since it was so easy, maybe we should get a ball a bit closer to shore. So I called over to James as he was motoring around and asked if that would be ok. He explained that the one I was interested in didn’t “belong” to him, but that the “best mooring in the harbor” was available and pointed out one real close to shore. He motored over and sat on the ball until we got there and passed the line to us. I gave him a sample of the Loudest Whistle in the World [My hobby is selling these on the Internet
]http://www.storm-whistles.com] and told him they work underwater. He wanted me to drop off a sample to his dive buddies on shore the next morning so I did. No problem. I also tacked one on the bulletin board at De Loose Mongoose. I wonder how long it will stay there.
Leaving Pussers store at Marina Cay – a belonger was sitting outside and showed us a s l o w l y moving land crab under a tree. We really had to slow down and watch closely to see it. That came home to me when I was snorkeling for the first time. Once I slowed down and just watched, a new world opened up. I might have worked too hard at trying to “see” if he hadn’t shown me the way.
Food:
Mari and I were both amazed at how good the food was everywhere we went. Our favorite was ribs at Foxys, and being from St. Louis we like to think we know a little about ribs, but all our other stops were top notch as well. I’m not going to list all the different restaurants we visited because that would leave out ones we didn’t get to, and that wouldn’t be fair. Seriously, I don’t see how you could go wrong anywhere.
We got our stuff from Bobby’s, only because I’d read such glowing reports about their service on this board. I’d like to add my own kudos. From downloading the spreadsheet, to emailing with Leon, to the delivery, everything was better than I could have imagined. Easy as Sunday morning. We BBQed steaks one evening, they were terrific, and only misjudged on how much water to buy. We bought more at the Ample Hamper later, where one of the clerks gave me a 2004 BVI Calendar for free because she saw me ogling it. That was nice. I went back to our boat and brought her a free whistle.
Pictures:
I am posting pictures on one of my domains just for friends and family. In other words, I’m not trying even a little bit to conserve bandwidth or resize them. It is a work in progress – I’ve found that I really don’t want to finish it because working on it reminds me of my trip. You are welcome to have a look but beware – it isn’t user friendly. Lots of big images jammed on the page.
http://9am.com/bviNicest Surprise:
My wife had ordered the soundtrack from the IMAX movie “Dolphins”, so we got to listen to Sting sing, from a dolphins perspective, “I need you like this hole in my head” while we were sailing along. Oh yeah, really tough to beat that.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda:
Should have tried snorkeling earlier in our trip – I thought it would be cool but didn’t really understand how awesome it really is – consequently I missed the opportunity to snorkel everyday.
Would of done this much earlier in my life, had I known how enjoyable it is. At immigration, the official asked if this was our first time to the islands. When I said yes, he responded, “what took you so long?” Indeed.
Could of packed less stuff. Ha! Big surprise, huh. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />
