Anchoring or mooring in the Caribbean?

Anchoring / Mooring

Marinas with finger piers as in the USA or Europe are very rare in the Caribbean. To stay on anchor is normal here. Charter Skippers are not used to anchor daily. They take therefore gladly mooring buoys. That is however not always as simple and unproblematic as it looks:

mooring buoys

professionally installed

-	British Virgin Islands
-	US Virgin Islands
-	St. Lucia / Pitons Marine Park
-	St. Vincent Tobago Cays / Marine Park

CRIMINALLY installed, extremely dangerous

-	Bequia SVG, Admiralty Bay
-	Union Island / Clifton Harbour

St. Lucia / Pitons Marine Park

The mooring buoys in the St. Lucia Pitons Marine Park, run by the SMMA (Soufriere Marine management area, VHF 16, Tel (758)459.5500, www.smma.org.lc, email smma@candw.lc) are professionally installed and maintained.

Advantage:

Marines park Ranger control professionally and friendly.

Disadvantages:

"Boat Boys" and water taxis, which have nothing to do with the SMMA, offer their services when taking up the mooring buoys. If one rejects, sometimes they tie their boats to the mooring buoys and block them thereby. Before release they require payment. A call with SMMA is sufficient for clarifying the situation, but may last a long time and who wants such unnecessary problems.

Mooring buoys are here often very deeply embodied. The water around the Pitons is very fast very deep. Additional are to be considered

-	very strong drop hoists, often 40 knots
-	strong current
-	tides

According to their moving area, it is different, if mooring buoys are embodied on 7 or on 40 meters depth of water. Therefore mooring buoys, which are embodied on 40 meters depth of water, will need substantially more space to the next mooring buoy.

The following water depths had mooring buoys (March 2006) in the particularly deep St. Lucia Jalousie Bay (between the Pitons), outgoing from the Jalousie hotel:

buoy	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	red	8	9	10	11
depth (meters)	7	14	33	40	20	20	13	11	20	15	11	11

Mooring buoy 3 and 4 were in March 2006 due to their depth too close (has been changed). Collisions of boats at buoy 3 or 4 could be prevented only by the fact that both shippers bound their dinghies inside alongside and so mutually used them as fenders.

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St. Vincent / Pitons Marine Tobago Cays

The mooring buoys in the St. Vincent Tobago Cays / marine park are told to be professionally installed and waited. What can be said until today:

Charging for the moorings is very professionally.

Whether installation and maintenance are just as professional will be seen. Until about 1 year approx. 30% the originally set moorings had disappeared. Perhaps one removed it. That is improbably, as long as money can be collected from moorings use each night.

Probably those mooring tore away together with the boats handing on them.
We will report on it.

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Bequia SVG, Admiralty Bay

Highly risky mooring buoys, because:

-	There one takes a large stone, a small cheap anchor or a scrap iron engine,
-	2 meters of thin chain and 10 meters of line,
-	throws everything into the water, pulls it with the water taxi,
-	and finished is the mooring buoy.

In very calm weather that may hold for a while. With winds starting from 25 knots the boats will slip in the bay. In Bequia drop hoists with 40 knots are common.

When you enter the Admiralty Bay, motorboats from all directions race to your boat in order to offer mooring buoys.

Accepts one (big error),

one is led and tied up to the mooring buoy. One must pay immediately, without to know on whom, how those mooring buoys look like and to whom they belong. A receipt is not given naturally. Often it happens that in the evening other locals come with their motorboats and charge a second time with the reference, the mooring buoy belongs to them. If one refuses the payment, they threaten with untying. Whether the mooring buoy really belongs to them, one does not know.

If one does not accept and wants to anchor, this former large bay becomes very close:

The Bequia Admiralty Bay offers usually bad anchor: On 2-6 meters of depth there are coral fragments with little sand lying above it, which pretends security. Hurricane Lenny crashed a few years ago into the Admiralty Bay. Since that time there remained even less places for anchoring. These few places are now dotted by those illegal and miserable mooring buoys, meanwhile even up to the Princess Margaret Beach.

If one finds a place for anchoring (the left side of the bay is better, also in case of swells from the north), the following happens:

30 meters beside the ship suddenly you see a mooring buoy, which was not there before. A motorboat comes along and the local requests the skipper to pull his anchor and go away. Its ship lies too close to the mooring buoy. If one refuses with the reference, the mooring buoy had not been there before anchoring, one harvests bad curses "fucking white…"
If one observes the scene a little longer, the following happens: The motorboat drives to the "mooring buoy", draws the "mooring buoy" (small anchor, 2 meters of chain, 5 - 10 meters of line) from the water into the motorboat, drives away 50 meters and lets there the "mooring buoy" fall. Reverse gear, finished, see above.

Who saw, how in Bequia with 40 knots charter ship engines are started at night, lights and position lamps flash up, skipper roar and ships slip with their mooring buoys through the fully occupied bay, can only say : Criminally, what happens in Bequia.

The government and the authorities know that, newspapers write about it, but: Nothing happens. We can explain that to ourselves only with corruption.

We informed about these dangerous practices in Bequia:	reaction
Mrs. Batise, Ministry of Tourism, Kingstown SVG, email tourism@caribsurf.com	None
Mr. Chester Peters of Bequia Tourism Association, Bequia SVG per email bequiatourism@caribsurf.com	"Moorings in Admiralty Bay offered for rent are not authorized by the Port Authority, and arc not inspected or insured. Until such time as the Port Authority regularises this situation, users rent them at their own risk. However, the following mooring holders have over the years established reputations for courtesy, safety and reliability: African Pride, Water Taxi & Marine Services - call VHF 68 Bequia Tourism Associarion WWW.BEQUIATOURISM.COM"

Therefore we think about Bequia:

-	Clear in / out and go.
-	At the most stay for one night (but only at your own anchor and far from the village, at least in Princess Margaret Bay)

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Union Island / Clifton Harbour

Behind the reef and everywhere in the bay of Clifton Harbour / Union Island since 2007 / 2008 lie and increasing amount of highly risky mooring buoys. Like in Bequia the "mooring" consists of a concrete block or a small, cheap anchor, 2 - 4 meters of chain and 10 meters of rope.

That is still much more dangerous in Union than in Bequia, since the Roundabout Reef of Union is very small and has in the centre a further reef.

A ship in Bequia will drift with its mooring through the bay, but with much luck will reach open water.
In Union it will drift guaranteed on the main reef in the centre or ashore.

Therefore we think about Union:

-	NEVER take a mooring on Union Island
-	IN ANY CASE use your own anchor
-	If that cannot be done: anchor provisionally, clear in / out, drive on and drop your anchor behind Fregate Bay, Palm Island or Petit St. Vincent. There will be enough place for anchoring.

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