We make the trip over to St. Thomas on nearly every trip to pick-up guests. Here are a few recommendations:

- We pick-up our guests at Red Hook and use American Yacht Harbor for the drop off and pick-up. They charge a small fee ($30?) but it is pretty easy. Keep in mind that AYH can be pretty crowded at times but they will let you use another end tie if they are open.

- We have a power cat so we usually tie up directly at the customs dock in St. John.

- Clearing BVI customs seems to be the easiest at Jost but West End is not too bad either. Please keep in mind that certain times can be a lot busier than others. We nearly missed a flight on July 1st due to the crowds at West End. I would not go out of my way to check out at Jost if you are coming from Hodges Creek but checking back in is nice and you can spend the night at Great Harbour.

- Try to arrive at Cruz Bay outside of the peak times for ferries and day boats. 11 seems to be pretty good although we were held up on our last trip by a delayed ferry that was also changing boats. Probably not a big deal if you grab a ball.

- Probably does not apply to your trip but the BVI will allow you to check out the day before.

- If you are ever checking out of the BVI and in the North Sound then I would recommend going over to Gun Creek but do it in the morning so the seem to pick a random time to close in the afternoon.

- I know a lot of people on this board like the quiet of St. John but we find the island to be inconvenient for charter boats given the lack of facilities. We had a wedding in St. John on our last trip and it was a real pain getting people back and forth. I think it will be a long time before we will spend another night on the boat in St. John.

- One more thing. Grab copies of sample customs forms in advance so you can have those prepared and make sure the charter company gives you everything you need. The US forms can be downloaded and entered via Adobe Acrobat which is really nice. We had one trip where we were in and out of Cruz Bay in under 5 minutes with our pre-printed forms.