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We will be staying in St. Thomas soon (our 3rd trip) and want to plan a full day exclusively at Jost Van Dyke. Our first thought was to charter our own boat from St. Thomas without a captain, and take it to Jost Van Dyke ourselves. But now we are thinking that it would be easier (and smarter / safer) to take a ferry or other "group passenger" boat from St. Thomas, just to get over to Jost Van Dyke, and then once we are there, we would rent a boat on Jost Van Dyke that we can use just to visit various locations on that island. Does anyone have info. on boat rentals on Jost Van Dyke? So far, all I have found are small inflatables (zodiak size) or small SeaDoo jet boats. We were hoping to find something a bit bigger (over 22 feet)' that we could enjoy anchoring near a beach or mooring on for a few hours as well as being able to take to shore locations with piers/docks etc.
I'd suggest you go to a BVI website to seek answers. Trip Advisor, for instance, has very active forums and their BVI info along with the forum will probably provide the answer to the question. Cheers!
I am not sure if there is a company that rents on Jost, I have never seen one.
I would recommend chartering a boat with a captain. That way you have a full day, if you take the ferry you will need to leave at 3pm, I believe.
With a boat with a captain, they will check you through customs quickly. You can have them take you anywhere you want to go whenever you want to go. They handle all the anchoring, etc. This allows you to save time and effort. We own a boat and we never charter a bare boat. The ease of the day outweighs the cost difference.
We use Capt John with Palm Tree Charters. He is on STJ but does charters from STT often.Great guy, great boat, and always the highlight of our trip
Call Darlene. She has a cousin who has a boat and will take you out. Darlene and her husband Ivan run a bar and campground on the beach, near Foxy's and Soggy $. If her cousin is not available, ask her to hook you up with someone else. They know everybody on this island.
Make sure to visit Sandy Cay and Sandy Spit : excellent snorkeling and photo ops.
Thanks for the advice. Island girl, you are correct, last ferry leaves JVD at 3 making for a shortrer than ideal day. All your points are good ones. I just thought it would be awkward having a Captain takes us around and have to hang out while we all party and have fun, but I suppose that is just the way it is. Seems that going it on our own would end up meaning we would really only have about 4 relaxation hours once we arrive at JVD, ,find our rental boat, etc., and then get all returned in time for 3 pm ferry back to St J. Assuming our Captain would also require a departure time of 3 or 4 at the latest, we would still have a lot more "productive" time on the island. Plus the savings on the ferry ride cost alone for the 4 of us will cover a third of the cost of the captained boat. Thanks again.
That is what Captains do! Not akward at all!
We stay on Jost until the last possible second, so usually by 4:15 we are on the water heading back
Charter a captained boat from STT and spend the day mulling around Jost. Jost is a quick trip from St Thomas--you will NOT get a bareboat here unless you have a masters license, no lake boat captains need apply...there is a significant amount of shallow reef in these waters and you're better off using an experienced captain here than trying to weekend-warrior your own boat [if you could get anyone to rent one to you sans captain].
I have several captains that I recommend, please feel free to PM me for details--one of my top picks is Rick with Lion in Da Sun.
Try Capt. Rick:
We used him in March and were extremely satisfied.
Cheers
Just to correct a previous post so people aren't confused. Darlene is actually Ivan's daughter not his wife.
Check w/ Conrad on Jost at the dive shop. He has plenty of boats and loves to take people out on tours. We rented from him one year and he took us up to Anegada for the day. They had no problem hanging out while we partied.
I do agree that if you are only planning a day trip you are better off renting out of STT as you won't have that much time w/ the ferry schedule to do alot of touring on a boat. The ferry arrives on JVD sometime around 9 or 10 and leaves again at 3pm so that doesn't leave much time to go out exploring.
Whatever you decide I hope you enjoy!
