USVI-On-Line

Hello Everyone!

We will be in the islands for the fourth time in December. We've rented a villa for one week on Virgin Gorda and I am shopping for a STJ villa for the second week.

I have always been curious about the bareboats. We are from the Midwest and own an average size ski boat that we mess around with on the local lakes.

Do you need any special expertise to rent a bareboat? How does the cost compare with a villa rental?

Any insight would be appreciated.

We've done both! Only rented a villa once, and then went back to the bareboats.

We always charter from CYOA in St. Thomas - the reason being that St. Thomas is much easier to get to than Tortola, and the provisioning is much cheaper and there's more variety in STT.

CYOA has both power and sail boats. Both my husband and I have been sailing all our lives, so getting a power boat was never a consideration, plus they are more expensive. CYOA has you complete a resume of boating experience, but if you don't pass the check out, they reserve the right to put a captain on board, that you have to pay for. They can tell very quickly, if a person is qualified to take the boat.

We have gone with people who, don't boat at all, but have always wanted to sail in the Islands and would rather us captain the boat than have someone they don't know on the boat. They pay for the boat, we pay for our flights and our share of the food and drinks. Its a great deal for us.

Anyone want to go?

Comparing bare boat chartering to renting a villa I'd say they are about the same. Just like the villas, you have high end boats and not so high end boats.

We like bare boating because we like to cook most, not all,our own meals. The renting of the boat is the only rental you have.... it is your transportation, your entertainment,and your hotel all in one! it gives you the best of both worlds. You can do beaches, bars, shopping, hiking, walking, and go to may of the places people in villas either only dream of, or have to do a day charter to get there.

If you scuba dive......there is not question that a boat is the way to go. Other than air you have no expenses.

If you have more questions.... feel free to e-mail me directly.

Here is the link to CYOA.

http://www.cyoacharters.com/

Assume you are talking about a power boat. If you operate a ski boat then shouldn't have any trouble operating one of the rental power boats. The VI's are pretty much line-of-sight navigation. You should understand the basic navigational aides and how to read a chart.

We rented a bareboat in '05 we brought our portable GPS device with the Caribbean BlueCharts loaded on it. We found a bunch of waypoints (lat/long) for all the hotspots and put those in the GPS. This was helpful, but not necessary. If anyone wants a copy of these waypoints then just email us. Here are the tracks from our GPS from our bareboat trip in '05: