TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Rocks north of airport claim another victim

It seems as though this happens 1-2x per year. Ignoring of the redlined area aside, why not improve the marking of this area? Yes, there is a north cardinal marker indicating the safe passage, but some crews still make the mistake and go south. Why not also mark the rocks? This has to be one of the top mishap areas in BVI.

Many trips ago I was preoccupied I guess and didn't make the right turn between the Camanoes and found myself in the middle of that no-go area. I put someone on the bow and we safely crawled our way through but it was definitely a lesson learned.

Do you have a link to the story?

Moorings no longer recommends passing between Great and Little Camanoe. I take this to mean they want you to go ALL the way around. I'm not sure this helps the situation.

Probably won't be a story about it. I went through that area on a private boat a few days ago and I had some discussion with the skipper about the rocks, marker, and how it's redlined area for bareboats. He sent a picture about the mishap this AM. Bareboat, idk the boat name or company. Hard to tell from the picture, but honestly not really important to my post. Seems like they had a good response and a lot of boats on sight helping. Damage was to port side hull, but it was floating decently well, probably with a pump running by the time the picture was taken.

Walker has a set of waypoints on his web site to guide you through this route:
https://bvipirate.com/BeefIslandPassage.html

Dan

Good route from Walker, but most captains will never see it. If they read the cardinal marker they should be fine. But still boats hit those rocks every year....

To Matt's original point.....why isn't there a marked channel there? It would seem the charter companies would collectively decide this is in their best interest. It does not seem cost would be a factor.

For years there was no channel markers b/t North Sound and Oil Nut Bay, and for that reason it was redlined. Once they put the channel markers in, almost all charter companies allow passage there.

When you insist charterers go "all the way around", as MrEZgoin describes, it seems you invite some to attempt the route south of the Camanoes rather than between them. I've never understood this.

The Moorings does not require you to go around. They want you to take the passage mentioned and pass N of the mark. It is however a mistake and they should have stuck with the standard passage.

I saw that on this year's brief but it was a non-issue for us since a planned night a Scrub fell through. The passage between the Camanoes is tight so we would take motor through very carefully. I probably would prefer going all the way around if there were any significant wind or tide issues and definitely not cross any Moorings redline areas.

While the Moorings chart briefing says "No passage just north and south of the airport runway" and "no passage between Little and Great Camanoe", the accompanying diagram ("red zones map") shows the red dot clearly between Beef island and Little Camanoe. So it's a bit confusing and I had gotten the impression that both were now discouraged.