Rio Dulce Chisme Vindicator

[Rule Britannia]

Big Creek Clearance fees 2011

It appears that there is a new Belize Ports Authority (BPA) person at Big Creek these days called Jessica Herrera who charged the following for clearance about a week ago for a 26 foot Wharram catamaran, Gross tonnage (GRT) 0.8 tons, Draft 2 feet.

The charges were fully explained and an official receipt issued All charges are in Belizean dollars

1. Clearance fee = 30.00BZ$
2. Navigation aids (GRT x 1.50BZ$) = 1.50BZ$
3. Pilotage fee (Draft x 6BZ$ inbound) = 12.00BZ$
4. Pilotage fee (Draft x 6BZ$ out bound) = 12.00BZ$
5. Fee per vessel per day
First 48 hours 30 BZ$ per day = 60.00 BZ$
After 48 hours 10 BZ$ per day 20 days @ 10BZ$ per day = 200.00BZ$

TOTAL for 22 days = 315.50BZ$

Note

The Wharram catamaran is very light and has a very shallow draft.

My 40 foot sail boat has a GRT of 13.01 and a draft of 5 feet. This means for the same period I would have to pay BPA 369.52BZ$!!!! and if we stayed for 90 days the BPA charges would be 1,030.52 BZ$

This makes Belize very expensive to visit as a cruising tourist. The above charges are designed for commercial craft NOT Pleasure craft.

I hope that Scoop will forward this onto Cliff Wilson who has been meeting with the Belizean Tourist board about cruiser charging (see http://riodulcechisme.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=5025)

I also hope that anyone trying to run a tourist business in Belize will put pressure on the Government, the Tourist board and the Ministry of Tourism to review the fees for Cruising tourists before we all stop visiting Belize.

For comparison purposes Guatemala charges about 50USD exit fee for 3 months and Honduras I am told charges less than 10USD