TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums Charter Boat Reviews and Questions Returning to USVI from BVI questions

We're planning on spending several days around ST John at the end of our BVI trip.
We've not taken a boat through Customs in years, so we have some procedural questions:

1) After clearing out at Great Harbor Jost van Dyke, can we remain overnight before heading to Cruz Bay? Can we go ashore after clearing out?
2) Do we need to bring the boat into Cruz Bay for Customs, or just the crew?
3) I remember some discussion of where to tie the dinghy for Customs, but it escapes me.
4) When we enter US waters, do we need some sort of seal on the holding tanks, or is placing the valves in the closed position sufficient while moored?
5 Is there a good place to spent the night with easy access to Cruz Bay for Customs, and perhaps shopping and dinner?
6) any recommended dining spots?

Thanks for any advice or assistance

We do this trip at least once a year. We start by arriving at Great Harbor in Jost Van Dyke around 10ish to noon. We check out of customs telling them we're leaving for St John early morning before they open. After checking out, we dingy over to soggy dollar for the day and spend the night in Great Harbor. We leave around 7/7:30 am the next morning and head over to St John. We have our boat registered with ROAM so now we use the ROAM APT to check into U.S. once we're in U.S. waters without having to physically visiting customs. Before we started using ROAM, we would grab a mooring ball just outside of Cruz Bay and dingy in for customs. We would always dock the dingy at the "public" dingy dock and walk over to customs. Never a problem. We were down about 4 weeks ago and after checking in with ROAM, we still dingy in to check out the rebuilding progress and lunch. We do LOCK the dingy at Cruz Bay.

3) Use the National Park Service dinghy dock. You'll be charged if you tie up alongside the wharf in front of C&I.

4) Just keep the tanks closed. To legally discharge within US waters you have to be 3 miles offshore (though 3 miles from the north and east shore of St John puts you well into BVI waters!)

5) Closest moorings are at Lind Pt (with 3 moorings) north of Cruz Bay. Plenty more balls juat past there at Honeymoon Beach and then at Caneel Bay.

6) Cruz Bay Landing does excellent breakfast, lunch and dinner. We've had very good lunches at The Tap Room(Mongoose Junction). Really like Morgan's Mango for dinner. We miss Rhumb Lines which reopened in Coral Bay.