Can those in the know please offer opinions on St. Thomas marinas? We're going to need a slip for 4 or 5 nights in February. Does anyone know how far in advance we'd have to reserve a space? We don't care which marina because we know we have to rent a car no matter what. I've looked at some web sites and can only find information for Crown Bay and AYH. What about Compass Point or Frenchtown Marina? We have to have a dock as we are doing some work on the boat. I'm hoping someone will say there's always space available as we don't know exactly when we'll get there, but it's a busy time to be in the VIs. Thanks for any information, thoughts, comments.
Lann

You might want to send an e-mail to Glen at charter@vipyachts.com They're in compass and may have an extra space for you.

I would contact them all by Email, if you draw 7' or more forget about Compass Point.

Yacht Haven in Charlotte Amalie will always have room. I am not sure what kind of 'work' is allowed on any dock in Feb.

What kind and size of boat? Mono or Cat? Draft? It makes a difference. I would be surprised if you couldn't get into AYH in Red Hook or Yacht Haven at almost any time. Crown Bay will usually have something. Compass and Independent are expanding right now so it's likely you could get in there as well. We don't have much space open in French Town, it would depend on the how many days and exact dates. What kind of work are you doing? That also would effect where you want to be. Proximity to parts and available trades if you need them.
Jay

The expansion at Compass Pt is huge. I still did not know they did daily docking. The marina and Kenny are impossible to get a hold of. I believe the marina office is only open 9-1 4 days a week.

Our work is just things like changing our lights to LED, adding some insulation to the refrigerator, changing out our anchor chain, but we'll be doing a lot of organizing and provisioning and did not want to dinghy back and forth. Thanks for the info. We just reserved a space at Crown Bay so we can be done with it and I can stress out about something else.
Lann

Crown Bay has everything you need and if needed Reefco is a short dinghy ride.

Jay, do you know if Compass and Independent have any plans on dredging and deepening the channel ?

I haven't heard one way or the other.
Jay

The channel was dredged last year and they put in new markers, still not a deep water channel.

In all the time we stayed at Compass Point, we never, ever had a problem reaching Kenny to get a slip.
We often did very short term. A day, two days, a week, and did long term at very very reasonable prices.
Nice part of Compass is the Budget Marine, grocery store, etc., and I believe that there is also a car rental there now. I thin it is Zip car Rental as that is where they told us they were moving. And they are GREAT! Reasonable and very accomodating.
pm me if you would like more info.