Bareboat Chartering Through the British Virgin Islands (Part 1)

It was a big step for us the first time we decided to sail through the British Virgin Islands. Imagine! Mary and me bareboat chartering through the B.V.I.'s!!! Just the two of us! That is the stuff that dreams are made of...and nightmares. But there we were, sailing in the B.V.I.'s on a 32-foot Beneteau sloop named African Breeze.

Before Sunsail Charters would consider us as bareboat charter candidates, we had to send them certificates of completion for the sailing courses that we had taken. We also had to agree to take a written test and a practical sailing test once we got there. If we failed either one of these tests, a captain would be assigned to us for the duration of our trip.

What a mortifying experience that would have been! Imagine having the guts to do something like this, and then having a babysitter assigned to you!

Mary and I went diving for our sailing textbooks, and we began studying them with a fervor. The whole summer before the first B.V.I.sailing vacation, you could find us out in the middle of Narragansett Bay on Believe, our twenty-eight foot Freedom Cat-ketch, running through Man Overboard drills and "heaving-to". We actually timed each other with a stopwatch on how long it took to tie sheet bends, clove hitches and figure eights. We were serious. There was no way that we weren't going to pass those stupid tests!

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On the first day of our vacation, as we rode the ferry from St. Thomas to Tortola, where our boat awaited us, I found myself getting nervous. My hands went numb. I began obsessively drilling myself on things like scope ratios for anchoring and right-of-way regulations.

When we got to Sopher's Hole on Tortola, we checked in at Sunsail, and we were shown to our boat. They then told us to be in the briefing room by the Sunsail office at 7 p.m.

We were there at 6:45.

We were ready. We were psyched! We were going to ace these things!

there was a long table in the briefing room that was surrounded by folding chairs and covered with charts and pencils. At one end of the table sat a TV and a VCR. I could feel the blood racing through my temples as I took a seat and played with the pencil in front of me. Let's do it!

The fellow who conducted the briefing was a tall, black man with a British accent and a wonderful sense of humor. His name was Maynard, and, for the next two hours, he went over the charts of the region with us, telling us what to look for and what to avoid. Then he showed us a brief travel-log video of the B.V.I.'s. And then... (a drum roll, if you please)...
we were finished.

As the credits rolled on the video, Maynard stood up, boomed "Have a nice voyage!" with a toothy smile, and then he left the room.

Mary and I looked at each other, dumbfounded. That was it? No test? Just, "Have a nice voyage?" No freaking test??!! After all of that studying???!!! All of that worrying and nervousness and diarrhea for nothing????!!!! How could they do that to us?????!!!!!

Well, rather than storm into the Sunsail office and demand to be tested, Mary and I decided to let it pass.

Then next morning, a person from Sunsail came to our boat and gave us our "Vessel Orientation." Sounds impressive, doesn't it? The orientation went something like this: "Here's the helm. Here's the ignition switch. Here's the radio. If anything goes wrong, call us."

That was it! I couldn't believe it!

Mary thought that Sunsail must figure anybody wanting to bareboat charter wouldn't be foolish enough to do it unless they could really sail a boat.

I figured that Sunsail must have their vessels insured up the whazoo, and they really don't care if you destroy them.

So...no test, very little orientation, and "Have a nice voyage."

We did.