Moored in a fragile paradise
Hundreds of boaters stuck in the Caribbean have converged on the U.S. Virgin Islands, but there are fears their safe haven comes at a cost for residents
Doug Mann thought he would ride out the start of the coronavirus pandemic on his sailboat anchored on the shores of Culebra, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico. With airports closing across the Caribbean and restrictions tightening, the American citizen planned to inch his way closer to the U.S. mainland ahead of hurricane season. But when he arrived, after a three-day sail through rough waters, local officers told him he had to leave. Immediately. So he sailed on.
As governments across the Caribbean moved to restrict the spread of the coronavirus, closing ports and instituting quarantine rules that vary by island, mariners of all nationalities found themselves unwelcome at port after port. Unable to dock, many have converged on the only available and practical harbour of refuge: the U.S. Virgin Islands.
As an American territory without control of its borders, the idyllic islands now have the largest number of boats that local officials have ever seen bobbing off their shores — as many as 600 boats at one point, up from 270 typically moored or anchored there each year. With weather up north still dicey and ports shuttered en route, they have few alternatives.
Residents have become increasingly concerned about not only the potential damage to fragile marine ecosystems, but also the water quality and an already limited medical supply.
Here, for an unknown duration
In an open letter on March 27, Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. welcomed visitors to a “safe haven under U.S. Flag protection at this grave time.”
The U.S. Virgin Islands — made up of St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix and Water Island — are subject to U.S. laws. Across the territory, yachts of all sizes now crowd the turquoise waters, shoehorned into the curved bays on makeshift moorings. Typically, at this time of year, sailors hop port to port across the Caribbean enjoying the beaches — now those beaches are closed and mariners are supposed to stay on their boats except for picking up essentials.
“Everything has converged here all at once,” said JeanPierre Oriol, commissioner of the territory’s department of planning and natural resources, who has worked there for two decades. “I’ve never seen the volume here in the territory that we have right now.”
At the end of March, New Jersey residents Carol and David Hewit were on their Island Packet sailboat, about half a kilometre from the Dutch island of Sint Eustatius, when, Carol Hewit recalled, “we were greeted as we entered their only harbour with bullhorns and boats.” They turned around and sailed through the night to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Now moored on Francis Bay in St. John, the couple, who are in their 60s, say they do not want to return home; the New
York area is now the pandemic’s epicentre. Like many sailors, they do not want to leave their boats by flying home — if they could even get a flight out.
Their son, based in New York, has moved his family, including their infant grandson, into the couple’s home, and the Hewits fear contracting the virus on the plane and passing it along. Many mariners like the Hewits plan to ride out the pandemic on islands, choosing what appears their safest option in an ever-changing set of unknowns.
But Marvin A. Blyden, a territory senate leader who has drafted several pieces of legislation regarding the mariners since their arrival, worries that playing safe haven for guests will prove dangerous for residents. “We don’t have the resources to deal with the large influx,” he said. “Yes, we’re an American system. Yes, we should look to help those in need. But at the same time we must protect our borders and we must protect our people.”
Concerns over water quality
Sailors might seem self-sufficient if they have food, water and other supplies on board, but waste disposal remains an urgent need. Most big ports include pump-out stations, but St. John’s does not, so mariners must trek almost five kilometres out to sea to dump their waste. (Some have not followed the rules: there have been reports of illegal dumping, which could affect the waters across the territory.) Residents are particularly worried about the quality of beach water, which has not been tested since the end of March.
And many boats are farther away in areas that are never tested, the lab owners said, making it impossible to know the effects on marine ecosystems. These ecosystems are crucial to two of the territory’s most important industries: tourism and fishing.
“It’s a much longer story for us,” said Brigitte Berry, a St. Thomas resident who helped found the Marine Rebuild Fund to clean the waters after two devastating back-to-back hurricanes in 2017. “I remember my dad fishing in that bay. He’s told me stories about his dad fishing in that bay, I see my nieces playing in that bay. We want generations more to fish and swim in that bay, so we get very protective of that.”
Mariners following the rules worry about coming back to a stranger at their mooring ball.
Stephen B. Meister and his family have been moored off St. John for almost a month. They had left their home in Long Island for his daughter’s spring break, but are now working, schooling and in the case of his daughter, Micaela, practising the violin on their 21-metre yacht. One recent morning, sailing off to dump their waste, Stephen Meister saw a catamaran approaching his dingy, in which his wife and daughter sat, near their mooring ball.
The catamaran had its boat hook extended. “They’re jousting at my wife — like medieval knights,” he recalled. “And they’re arguing ‘You can’t hold the mooring.’” He quickly returned to claim his place, and made the 30-minute journey eight hours later when “the coast was clear.”
More and more garbage
Some cruisers, seeking a more secluded haven away from town, have nestled among the tree-sheltered waters of the Virgin Islands National Park, which makes up almost twothirds of St. John.
But with the closure of the park — and the halting of garbage collection — bags of trash soon were piled around the locked barrels, concerning boaters and residents alike.
Some residents banded together, filling a truck bed with trash on a recent weekend.
Nate Fletcher, a St. John resident and the owner of Blue Line Yacht Charters, now goes twice a week, boat to boat, collecting trash. He gathered 60 bags on a recent Tuesday. “It’s a big career change,” Fletcher said with a laugh, adding that his boat, the Poseidon, an 11-metre Midnight Express with three 300-horse power engines, is “a very, very fast trash boat.”