Test question?

There is negligible tide in the BVI's

...I do understand that but here's my thinking: One foot is one foot, specifically going into what is described by the captain as "a shallow anchorage". You draw the line somewhere, but if a high tide of one foot is in your favour, then it may give you the confidence to visit an anchorage that you may have otherwise written off as "too shallow", even if it only gives you the opportunity to go in at high tide and poke around with the depth sounder (and a lookout) and then make a decision, knowing that you'll loose a foot of draft in the next 6 hours. If the captain is thinking "gee this is a shallow anchorage for MY boat", then the responsible captain is going to check all available information; tides, forecasts, make a radio call, poke around a bit, to find the best spot for HIS boat, until he is confident that it is not "a shallow anchorage" but "a good [safe] anchorage for MY boat". Otherwise, the right answer is to skip it and anchor out. Modern technology makes tides available at the click of a button on an app or plotter. It makes no sense to me that you wouldn't take the extra minute. As for paper tide tables, if I take the course in the Bahamas will we not be looking at tide tables then? Of course we'll be looking at them! They really aren't that difficult, even using the one in book form, calculating by hand is only a 5 minute exercise once you get the hang of it, do it as part of your route planning. And it's one layer of safety for you and the boat. I learned to sail on the Great Slave Lake, where no recent depth info is available, and season to season, year to year, the depth does change (year over year always shallower and shallower). It's info that I wish I had had available: maybe because I never had it is why I'm so jealous that having it you would choose not to use it, especially when you have already thought to yourself "hey, this is going to be a shallow anchorage"...