TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands ciguatera risk from restaurants?

I recently became aware of the risk of getting sick from ciguatera by eating fish. A forum search shows a number of posts about this but most seem to be in the context of eating fish that you catch.

My question is, am I generally safe by only eating fish from restaurants? I know that cooking doesn't remove the risk and that it's safest to not eat reef fish but when I'm looking at a menu, I don't necessarily know which fish are reef fish and which aren't. Are the restaurants only serving non-reef fish or otherwise able to be trusted to not poison me (setting aside baseline risks of getting sick from eating anything)?

How much of an issue is this if I'm not eating fish that I catch?

My wife, who is pretty informed on such things, will not order grouper or other reef fish in restaurants either for the risk you mentioned.

My wife and I both had snapper at a well-known resort on Virgin Gorda. In the morning, we both felt unwell. Suspect it was the snapper.

We don't eat fish from around Vieques of any type. We have had friends from three different boats get ciguatera round Vieques, even on passage well offshore. No barracuda from south side of St. Thomas per our Frenchie fisherman friend. We don't eat barracuda north of Guadeloupe and do not eat the baracuda we catch. We do eat snapper, grouper, blue runner/hardnose, and pelagic fish. Local fisherman are our best source of info on ciguatera.

Ciguatera nervous system symptoms are terrible, debilitating, and long lasting. It is worth avoiding.

Cheers, RickG

Most fish served in the BVI is imported. Which is not to say it can't be stored or prepared improperly and make you ill! It pays to be careful with locally caught fish.