The supposed three pillars of the Virgin Islands economy are financial services, tourism and agriculture.
Agriculture is, of course, a bad joke, and the new greenhouses (the legacy of former Natural Resources and Labour Minister Omar Hodge) are highly unlikely to make that situation any more palatable. Greenhouse farming is anything but simple, and the average VI farmer is not likely to be able to make a go of it. The real question at the end of the day is whether produce from the fancy greenhouses is going to be cost competitive with imported vegetables. Time may tell, if the greenhouses ever get out of the starting gate. And, if pigs could fly, you might expect to find a nest of sucklings in a high tree!
Financial services have been around for a long time, and they are very profitable for some local institutions. But they are now under attack by the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as facing competition from other countries both in Europe and the Caribbean. Life is not as easy as it used to be!
So that leaves tourism, which, as always, is really the only thing that should be more or less under local control. That, of course, assumes that the world economy is relatively stable. And the fact that the US “fiscal cliff” was not really solved, but just postponed, is not going to help. The general consensus seems to be that two months from now the proverbial excrement may still interfere with the operation of the fan.
Assuming that the situation on Beef Island is not going to change in the near future — hopefully never — the tourist arrivals in Tortola are going to depend on the operation of the USVI airport and the ferry traffic between Charlotte Amalie, Red Hook and Tortola. At the present time, the ferry situation is, to say the least, terrible. And it is not just one ferry operation that is deficient. But there is one operation that stands out above (or below) the other two.
Road Town Fast Ferry (three large catamarans, at least one of which is damaged) is now back in service after a longish (and unexplained) absence.
Native Son still has ongoing engine problems with at least one of its boats.
But the outstanding problem child is Tortola Fast Ferry, also known as Smith’s Ferry. And it is a VI-owned company!
Smith’s flagship seems to be the “Bomba Charger.” I believe this to be the same boat that I first rode in 1978. And it has changed for the worse since then. It is dirty, smelly, noisy and no more dependable than any of the other boats.
Everyone that you talk to has another story about Smith’s.
Complaints
One employee of the Ports Authority recounted the story of a crossing to Charlotte Amalie in conditions that were extremely rough (not all that unusual) when the Smith’s captain used the “pedal to the metal” approach to navigation and some passengers were frightened to the point of terror.
On New Year’s Day, friends who arrived from Boston at about 2 p.m. hoped to catch the Smith’s ferry that was apparently scheduled to depart Charlotte Amalie at 3:30 p.m. The ferry was delayed for unknown reasons and arrived in Charlotte Amalie sometime after 5 p.m. And, somehow, there were apparently some 40 passengers from a cruise ship on board who had to be delivered back to their ship before the boat could start to return to Tortola. The boat finally arrived in West End at about 7:30 p.m. Needless to say, passengers who had been travelling all day were not favourably impressed! In fact, they were more than a bit ticked off.
On the day after New Year’s, the situation repeated itself. Except this time, it was several hours worse. The Smith’s boat was scheduled to leave Charlotte Amalie (as the last boat of the day) at 5:30 p.m. It finally arrived there at about 6:30 p.m. — again apparently with a load of cruise ship passengers en route back to their ship. They again had to be delivered to the ship before the boat could start for home. The Sterling arrived at West End at about 8:40 p.m.
The passengers were, needless to say, livid. To make matters worse, the Smith’s ticket agent is reported to have spoken rudely to the passengers and walked out. This was a truly glorious experience for a first-time VI tourist. One highly experienced visitor to Tortola commented as follows: “If I didn’t love the VI so well, I would never come again.”
The VI Ports Authority has a presence at West End to meet the ferries and to attempt to mitigate any minor problems. He was, of course, helpless to mitigate the situation displayed by Smith’s Ferry.
The tourism minister recently said that $3.7 million was too little for the BVI Tourist Board to advertise the VI as a tourist destination. He was “going to try to find extra funds.” Lots of luck! The word-of-mouth advertising that will come from this situation will need a lot more than the expensive but weak-kneed efforts of the BVITB to counteract this degree of stupidity. And, while you can control your own advertising, you cannot control word of mouth.
Abandoned boats
The ferry companies suffered badly in Hurricane Earl when their boats were damaged by the rogue abandoned boats in the supposedly safe area where many of them were moored. And the Ports Authority still seems incapable of disposing of these navigation hazards. The best situation would seem to be to tow them out to sea and sink them in the deepest water available.
Given the probably poor tourist seasons that have followed, all ferry companies have gone downhill. But Smith’s seems to have fared worse than the others.
The bottom line seems simple to me. The ferry companies are licensed to operate by the government acting through the Ports Authority. Speedy’s comes and goes to Virgin Gorda without fuss and on time. The others seem to operate on a “catch as catch can” basis. If a ferry company cannot come and go on a scheduled basis with decent and presentable equipment, and if a ferry company loses sight of the fact that the purpose of the operation is to transport tourists back and forth — and not to run cruise ship passenger excursions to the VI — then its licence to operate should be revoked. At the very least, violators should be heavily fined and advised that a repetition of the situation will result in much more severe penalties.
We have an apparently efficient service between Road Town and VG. Why not dispense with Smith’s and suggest to Speedy’s that it take over Smith’s portion of the route?
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