Many people fly in on a friday or saturday, and start on a sunday. Due to available vacation times from work. .

Possibly that makes for a lot of starts for the charter companies, weekend days , which can slow things up for getting out of the docks after the provisioning, any pre inspection of the vessel on your own , filling the water tanks,
checking the dink and outboard motor, getting the chart brief, and the systems check out, etc.

We chose WEDNESDAY, but we all have our own individual procedures as to how we handle our personal bare boat charters and have things run smoothly, and avoid problems that can arise not of our doing.

Two week sailing vacation. We add in some additional wiggle room with a hotel prior and post charter. Just in case of airline or weather problems, or other travel situations.
No rushing madly about with tight schedules. This was our First time via St. Thomas.

The only problem that we had was the absolute mess at St. Thomas Airport, when heading back to MIA, to LAX. We were advised to get there THREE HOURS AHEAD OF TIME, That was good advice.
From the checking in at the terminal desk...American....and large groups of six to eight people ahead of us. Then the customs / imigration line, and the deposit baggage check inspection line, and the TSA line,
it was about two hours until we cleared that mess. That gave us some time to belly up to the terminal pub for a couple of relaxing drinks before boarding. Of course, everyone is totally free to handle that situation in their own way.

Bare Boat Charter:

With Conch , We do get the early 4:30 pm boarding and spending the night before departure on the boat, and this allows us to stow our gear, and get our own provisions ourselves and stow them. We also go thru much of the systems,
and rigging and vessel inventory after the 4:30 pm boarding. An hour and half to two hours later, we take a well earned break for drinks and dinner ashore and hit the rack . We finish our own personal pre sailing check of the vessel
the next morning, and are all ready for the chart brief and boat system brief. Out of the docks on on our way by 11:00 am. Sailing. Hello, Willy T.

Reason we leave the docks on Wednesday....very few other starts. This year there was one other start. Same for returning the boat and getting the post sailing check done in short order. This was Conch Charters/ They were great..

We understand that this is from a retired lifestyle, and most people are still hard at work with major career and family responsibilities and they are constrained by vacation and school schedules.

P,S. for the OP.....

this trip for the fist time, we stayed at Nanny Cay for a couple of days, and absolutely loved it, We had November 5 in the new Marina, great slip neighbors, helpful and friendly staff, and many new acquaintances, plus Peg Legs, the Beach, and
and the swimming pool. Good choice of departure point or replenishment stop .

Have fun!




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