Preparation to sail to BVI's

Saturday, January 8 we were visitor free and had a lot to do in preparation for our sail to the British Virgin Islands. We managed to reverse on to the fuel dock without hitting anything and got a 600 litre top up. At 11am the Dutch Bridge opened and we took our place in the queue with the super yachts. Our 50 foot yacht was a bit of a shrimp amongst these awesome boats. We dropped anchor in Simpson Bay Lagoon and the swell was terrible. Faraway rolled and pitched and we hoped that it would settle down by the evening. We had trouble getting in the dinghy to go and clear immigration and visit the Grand Marche for food supplies. If you thought parking in the supermarket car park was bad try getting into a dinghy dock with a full swell then try loading your groceries and getting out to your boat without getting saturated or losing valuable food items overboard. The 2 of us were becoming masters at balance and coordination.Supplies on board Ian cooked a quick pasta meal between the rocking and rolling. I had a fight with the shower door as I tried to balance for a quick rinse. We watched a beautiful sunset and a cruise ship headed out on the horizon. We set up beds in the cockpit but I couldn't sleep and kept rolling out of bed so I had to move into the saloon. If anyone was going to be sick this was the time to do it and we weren't even sailing at this stage. We wondered what it would be like to be tucked up in a cozy apartment or house rather than out on the sea in the boat which was in effect our life line. Pots and pans kept banging from places we didn't know existed and the cutlery draw kept spewing out knives and forks. We kept sitting up to check our anchoring position and luckily we hadn't moved. At 3am I was glad to hear the alarm go off as we hadn't had a wink of sleep. Ian had been up since 1am trying to fix the radar which wasn't a good start. By 4:20am we managed to get everything organised and I pulled up anchor in the dark. We quietly slipped out of the bay between the super yachts like a ghost in the night. The moonlight reflected off the wash from the bow. It was really eerie but exciting at the same time. At 5:00am Ian announced that he needed a 30 minute sleep and that I was in control. I kept scanning the radar and looking for lights from other ships but all was clear. It was a relief when the sun finally came up at 6:15am.