Bloody hell, we had the rather tricky situation this week of trying to find out if our big November trip to the BVIs (and Barbados, Puerto Rico,and NY, all wrapped round it) could possibly still be on, given the nightmares of Irma.
Clearly far bigger issues going on than just our holiday, but we also needed to see how the land lies – pretty much literally in the wake of the storms – especially as this was the trip we had to cancel last year due to ill health and this was our big hope of resurrecting it.
First call to Dream Yacht gave rise to an unexpected reply, 'your boat survived'. Now, having seen the photos of Tortola Harbour where the boats were smashed on top of each other, this seemed bizarrely unlikely. And then to the second call, 'we got it wrong. Your boat has been totally destroyed'. Ah yes, sad but much more likely to be true.
And we then checked out the footage of the beautiful places we've been to before. The renowned Soggy Dollar Bar. The lethal Willy T's bar. The whole of lovely Anegada island and the incredible Cow Wreck Beach Bar, now all too much living up to its name. All gone. Bum bum bum.
Very luckily, Dream Yacht are beavering away, trying to move all charters to other locations. So, £600 for some alternative flights later, we now seem to be heading for St Vincent and the Grenadines. The first not great boat was then replaced by a much nicer sounding one, which we've accepted and we are now heading somewhere entirely new and unexpected.
Poor BVIs. Hopefully we will be back again in a few years. Till then, St Vincent here we come x