friends

Connected with Max and Whitey at Nanny Cay. They were coming off charter, having dropped their Australian guests in St. Thomas on Friday. As always great to get together and hear about their adventures. They have recently returned to the charter business on a 50 ft St Francis.   Previously they operated several much bigger boats with crew. Then took time off to live and work in Belize and Bradonton FL. Whitey drove for Uber for several months – interesting experience apparently.

Great to tap into their extensive experience throughout the Caribbean. We are now looking into the Grenades as a possible haul-out location. Plenty of marines with suitable size travel lifts and storage. Starting to inquire about insurance coverage for there. As of now, no one is writing insurance for the BVI as they work out new policies for coverage in the aftermath of hurricane Irma.

Nanny Cay hotel sustained quite a bit of damage in the hurricane. They are working on restoring many of the upstairs rooms including ones we stayed in many years ago.

Driving into Road Town the other day was mixed. Many businesses were open for business as usual. Then around a bend, there was a scene of total devastation – buildings in shambles, piles of badly damaged boats along the stretch of rocky shoreline.

It is hard to tell how the charter and cruising business is doing. Out on the mooring, there are many boats competing for spots as early as 8am and most are filled before noon. We talked with folks who had chartered here before and have been very disappointed by their experience this time, They ended up here in Nanny Cay Marina because their were no moorings available at the Bite or at Great Harbour on Peter Island. The winds and seas were severe enough that they weren’t comfortable anchoring the catamaran they chartered with relatively inexperienced family members aboard.

There are a lot of charter boats parked at the docks here in Nanny Cay. Horizon has a big fleet here. Several boats were returned over the weekend, but it doesn’t look like many have gone out again – unlike years past (or Nassau, for that matter), where guests get off, a clean-up crew descents, works like crazy for 6-8 hours, next party arrives to come aboard at 5pm to overnight and they are off the following morning.