TORTOLA AND HURRICANE IRMA

MSC Divina / Roadtown, Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Tuesday

82F, sunny

The island of Tortola, with about 30,000 residents, took a hard hit from Hurricane Irma in 2017 and it still has not totally recovered. We noticed differences as soon as we disembarked from our ship. A new entrance way to the island from the dock has been built with some small shops inside. Through that building a new street was built with the regular shops, Diamonds International, Little Switzerland, Del Sol, Cariloha, and more.

Port of Roadtown, Tortola-view from our balcony

entrance building and new street

Welcome to Tortola

New street as one enters the shopping area

There are always chickens on the islands. Nine little peeps here, I love chickens!

This market area is still standing but many little shops are shuttered. 

We were determined to find familiar areas so we continued on. Despite several new condo buildings and office buildings, we still saw buildings with no roofs, some with damaged exterior walls.

The one shop we especially loved on this island was Sunny Caribbee, a shop that sold our favorite seasoned sea salt, nicely packaged. Over the years we have purchased a lot of this seasoned salt not only for us, but for family and friends. It really was perfect for a summer tomato and mozzarella salad (Caprese). To our dismay the shop was no longer open, shuttered. The small gardens were gone but the building appeared intact. A small shop within the Tortola entrance way had a few Sunny Caribbee seasonings, but not our favorite. When I asked the store clerk, he told me that the business was still not able to make all of its items, and the website was not up yet.

While at dinner Donna shared that their guide told them the island still suffers from the effects of Hurricane Irma and that some areas did not have electricity until recently. Lawrence  has no filter and our new servers like us.

MSC Divina

Two ships in port-NCL Bliss and MSC Divina

Another good book bites the dust--after we returned to the ship we found shade by the pool

 TK’s Takes: There was way too much chlorine in the aft pool. He likes Italy’s gelato better—he tried chocolate, but he says perhaps fruit flavored is better.