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Hi All.

We are considering a 4-week December charter with Virgin Islands Yacht Charters out of St Thomas at Compass Point Marina. We are looking to charter their Helia 44 Blue Kite.

We have chartered with the Moorings several times, most recently (December 2017 - January 2018) a one-way charter from St Lucia to Grenada on a Moorings 4000, and in 2016/2017 in the BVI on a Moorings 3900.

Does anyone have any experience with Virgin Islands Yacht Charters, and particularly with this yacht, good bad or otherwise!

Thanks
Bernard

We are chartering with them at the end of this month. We are going to be on Discovery, their FP Lucia 40. I will let you know how goes but so far communications with them have been excellent. I've chartered twice before with their base on Tortola and both times was amazing.

Is this BVI yacht charters with a new name?

It's there affiliate in the USVI

Amen. After a dozen Moorings charters, and one DYC charter (all excellent), we are chartering a Helia 44 (Rendezvous) with VIYC the last two weeks of this month for a trip to the SVIs. The communications with VIYC (Jim and Kristi), and BVIYC (Cassie and Abbie) have been great. Unbelievably prompt and responsive.

I assume you have already booked as Jim casually mentioned to me last week a group they have on the books that sounds like yours. Jim and Kristi are fantastic people who will bend over backwards for you. We just finished our 3rd charter with them in less than a year. You won't be disappointed.

We will be using them May of 2019. We originally had a charter in early October of 2017. As the story goes, Irma came and we had to reschedule. We left our deposit, and they gave us some love on rescheduling to a different season, keeping our old rate. While we could have gotten our deposit back as we bought their insurance, we felt like it was the right thing to do to support them, and in turn they took good care of us. Good solid customer service.

Thank you, Steph!! We really appreciate guests like you!

Thanks so much!! Looking forward to seeing y'all soon! We're planning to be in MI sometime in the next few weeks . . . let's REALLY catch up this time. LOL

My crew would switch to a USVI trip in a hot heartbeat but our deposit is still on a boat with BVIYC for 11/4-11/7 with a sleepaboard on 11/3.

I asked if The boat could be brought to USVI but was told no

I no longer feel there is much hope for it happening in the BVI

Hi Winterstale - I wouldn't despair - were only at the tail end of August.

Hey Winterstale, I feel your pain, we have 2 charters back to back with separate crews. Our charter is suppose to start on the 10/23 with a sleep aboard on the 22nd, then the next one starts 10/21, I am starting to get a tad bit anxious!

Yeah....it is the not knowing that is frustrating - that and all the money tied up in it. It’s hard to keep telling my crew, who are all newbies to this - “I have no clue if we will actually make this trip or not” - and trying to explain the charter contract, etc.

These are indeed strange times - we sure didn’t see this one coming.

According to my charter companies, the Government is suppose to release the statement on September 1st. It would be nice to know that is actually going to happen, There is so much misinformation out there its crazy.

if this goes off we should be there at the same time, at least for a few days. We should try and meet up some where and discuss all this craziness. Of course that's if we are allowed in the Territory, or even off the boat!

who is your contract with, we are with Voyage and then VIYC.

The BVI government announced a further nine Covid cases this morning. Two people are hospitalized. They are doing free testing today and Monday on Virgin Gorda. September 1 is Tuesday, four days from today.

I am not a betting person, but announcing Monday that they're opening to tourists? Not likely.

We have been chartering with BVIYC for over 10 years - love them and have never had a problem with them.

We are on a catamaran - 42 Lagoon “Stella” from 11/3 (sleep aboard) to 11/11 - and then it will just be my husband and me on “Arun”, a 38 Beneteau from 11/11-11/21.

Would love to share a cold one somewhere if we make it!

Agree completely...I highly doubt they will announce an opening to tourists...therein lies my frustration.

Sixteen more Covid cases announced today, bringing the total number of cases to 47. Some police officers are included, so they're disinfecting the East End and Road Town stations. None of this bodes well for re-opening to tourists, I'm afraid.

I think it does, they are contact tracing very well and testing a lot more with no full lockdown and they are still allowing the flow of work permit holders to come back.....so far.

The number is only 12 as they mentioned the other 4 already or the press release is wrong and the number would be 51 total.

Ugh....the news just gets worse and worse.....

Is there any info on how many of the cases are fatal?

As a physician in a "Hot zone" in the US, our numbers (total cases) are going up as we are testing lots and lots of people with minimal indication. Our inpatient census has been declining since July 4th and the number of ICU patients and number of patients on ventilator also continues downward.

These last 2 groups, especially the people off ventilators, is most signifciant as this is a very limited resource.

My personal belief is that there are lots of people with Covid who would never know it without very easy /frequent testing.

I also believe we can do our part by wearing mask and keeping distance. When I fly, I wear N95 and a face shield as this is what I wear for protection when I go into "the belly of the beast" where I know I will be encountering Covid 19 patients.

Not good:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2771038069885035&id=100009366089928

1 death to date.

Well, Peter....that statement certainly doesn't spell out positive chances for November visits
I hope they make an official announcement soon so we can get down to the business of moving things AGAIN.

Two weeks of lockdown will be bad news financially for a lot of people. I'm guessing they'll also hold off return of belongers and residents, given the extra demands on quarantine and medical resources.

Yes - I was chatting with Nick and Monica yesterday - it will be very bad economically if tourism is gone for all of 2020....and it certainly looks like that will be the case.

Looks like they are getting ready for another lockdown 24Hr.

They are going to be doing these lockdowns far into the future if not forever. Most experts now say Covid is here for the long haul and will never go away. The good news is that it’s far less lethal than originally put out and we are already much better at treating it. It will become another flu and may end up with a lower mortality rate. A vaccine will be a huge help but currently only 41% in the US say they will get a Covid vaccine.