Opportunity for Brazilian Tourism - To attract boat owners

Opportunity for Brazilian Tourism - To attract boat owners

 

Brazil excels in wasting tourism revenue opportunities. But as our National Anthem states, we sleep eternally in a splendid cradle… yeah, sleep…

 

We managed NOT to be a preferred summer getaway. With over 8.000 km of coast line, we managed NOT to be en route for the world’s sailboats and mega yachts.

 

There are various reasons for this, but there is a root: 3 months max stay for foreign boats.

 

It is time to drop this stupid law and benefit from wrong policies occurring elsewhere. As stated by Paul Glavin in http://www.helenmarygee.co.uk/ , the Caribbean Islands are charging such high docking and mooring prices, that bays and quays are getting empty.

 

If Brazil moves swiftly, who knows we can become a desirable destination for wealthy boaters and the not so wealthy as well.

 

Please read Paul’s lines:

 

The Caribbean as a cruising ground for sailors, as we know it is vanishing fast.  There may be a world wide recession but out here they have raised their charges.  In one island  5 euros per square foot for  boat to drop your anchor meaning for a 47 foot boat for three days it costs 36 euros to anchor in open water.  Anguilla charges the equivalent of £400 for a weeks cruising permit plus entry fees.  In the guide book it says that the benefit of this is that the anchorages are empty.  I wonder why?  The downside of this wonderful strategy is that the local population earn nothing.

 

Barbuda, an island that we visited many years ago now charges US$20 dollars one way to take you on a three minute boat ride to the customs dock.

 

We hear that the British Virgin Islands has filled the harbours with mooring bouys at US$25 per night.   You can almost hear the doors closing and the exhaust sounds over the horizon as the people are leaving these wonderful cruising waters in their mega yachts.   To anchor in the bay at St Martin is US$40 for a week and to anchor in the   lagoon for the same period is US$70.  Unfortunately the cruising guide book that went to press at the end of 2008 is so horribly out of date with regard to fees, with some charges being quadrupled.  However you only find that out when you have dropped the hook and by then it is too late.

 

We know of spectacular charter yachts which have only had one booking this season and these bookings would have been taken the season before the crash. 

 

I was paying my anchoring fee in St Barth when one of the super yachts paid his mooring dock fees.  It was over 10,000€.   The inmates have taken over the asylum leaving the rest of us only the back waters to explore, which are seldom reached by a boat drawing over two meters. 

 

So for our part rather than leave the boat in the Caribbean to do another couple of seasons out here sadly we are returning to Europe where, believe it or not as the marinas are becoming half full they are discounting their fees.    Ramsgate berth holders take note.  

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