lol, I was in the BVI during "hurricane season" as well (just last week!), but managed to avoid most rain. The clouds seemed to gather around large land masses like Tortola & Virgin Gorda, so it was nice watching the lightning from the smaller islands.
The D800 is awesome to shoot with. The picture quality is subjective, but I do find myself surprised by its dynamic range capturing shadows and highlights. The ergonomics are an improvement over the Nikon D700 and Canon 5Dii (in my opinion), with dedicated live-view buttons and quick access to almost all the features I need (switching auto-ISO on and off, adjusting aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, manual white balance). The milky way shot was done with the built-in intervalometer, which works awesome - with Canons, you'd need a separate accessory... On the negative side, I did notice some rainbow aliasing in the waves but I'm not much of a pixel-peeper. The one awesome feature of the D800 is the optional DX video crop mode, which effectively doubles all of my lenses. I carry primes (24mm f/1.4G and 85mm f/1.8G), so it really helps me save space, weight, and money. In post, I found the DX crops appear to have slightly degraded image quality, but it could be my imagination (and either way, getting a shot is better than no shot). I'd definitely recommend a polarizer to help with glare in tropical locations.
