St. Croix to Anchor New Caribbean Ferry Network, Boosting Regional Trade

Connect Caribe's maritime project will launch with St. Croix as its hub, offering affordable ferry connections across the Caribbean. The initiative emphasizes cargo transport to lower food costs, aiming to revitalize economic ties among island nations

A trans-Caribbean maritime network is coming, beginning as soon as next year. That's the goal of Connect Caribe, a regional ferry service seeking to make St. Croix a major hub. “Instead of looking at the islands as separate elements of an organism, we start looking as one – the same way every successful country in the world looked at each other,” said Raphael D'angelis, vice chair of Connect Caribe. “What we're trying to create here is the United Countries of the Caribbean, with the leadership of the Virgin Islands and certain other regions.”

Funded by private venture capital, Connect Caribe is a collaboration between several regional firms specializing in travel, information technology, cargo and logistics. Together, they hope to leverage their collective expertise to establish a long-held dream for proponents of regional integration — a maritime trade route connecting the islands of the Caribbean. “What we're literally doing now, we're building this network of passenger and cargo ferries that will connect all of the Caribbean coming from South America – Suriname up to the U.S. Virgin Islands,” said Anthony Weeks, USVI's Special Economic Envoy, and Managing Director of SEDI-CASE.