I just heard from a friend who is in the BVI for a couple of months on his own boat, and he has heard of a "new" departure fee. He isn't sure about the details, but said it might be a function of boat size and/or number of people on board. It sounds as though it could get expensive in a hurry if you have a larger boat with a sizable crew.

Has anyone heard of this, and if it is true, do you know the details? The last I knew, there was a $10 or $20/person departure fee, but that was all...

Yesterday my departure tax along with 2 friends was $20 each and paid by cash, visa or MasterCard in West End. We also made a pit stop in St John to clear customs as the equipment was down in Charlotte Amalie.

It sounds like you may be asking about a tax for a vessel and I'm not knowledgeable on that.

Just curious who said the equipment was down in CA. I had the Ferry company say the same thing. Turned out they were short on ferries and were stopping at Cruz to pick up more passengers. Easier way to explain why the non stop was stopping is to blame customs!
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The captain of our ferry. We were in the 10am from West End to CA on Native Sun and later in the afternoon I saw him and asked.

There were no new passengers boarding when we stopped in St John.

We also asked the crew on our ferry while we were in St John and they said it was the first time ever this had happened.

Oh, and the crew unloaded all our luggage, we claimed it all and went through customs and then loaded it all back on. Double work for the crew.

I don't know that there is any equipment that could be down at the CA terminal. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

When we came through a few weeks ago, there was nobody manning the scanner and they told us to collect our bags and go.

I just spoke with the same friend who is still in the BVI, and the fee may be associated with clearing back in after a "side trip" to the USVI.
Anybody have anything on this?

There was a thread over a month ago on this. They charged $1 per foot to clear in and the same fee to clear out for several days before the fees were stopped. I cleared out a couple of weeks and wasn't charged any fee apart from $0.75.