Update from Sea While on Watch

It is about 4:30 AM on Tuesday. I am on watch and this has been a rough 24 hours! We are encountering the craziest seas yet. It has been so unpredictable that it is difficult to sleep when off watch because I roll and slam no matter how or where I lay. Frank on the other hand can sleep on his head and nothing wakes him. We have both tried everything we can think of during our respective watches to find a comfortable direction and set of the sails. Not to be! Before that we have both been so
tired when not on watch that we try to grab some shut eye, hence although he is posting our position on the website neither of us has been up to writing or posting logs.
In fact as I write this I'm pitching about so this will be done piece-meal.
After I sent the last blog, we thanked God that the winds and the seas had remained fairly calm because (this will be my lingo not boat words) the lift line that runs from the top of the mast to the end of the boom snapped loose. The clamp at the end of the boom gave way, causing the lift line which has a shackle (pulley) attached to the end to slap around the rigging - much like the clew clamp did back before Cabo. And when a boat has a boom as large as ours you do not want the lift line to go!
It keeps the boom off our heads. Frank had to go up the mast in the bosun's chair to retrieve the loose line which was just at about the first spreader slapping around and getting tangled up in the shrouds. He got banged around a bit as the boat rocked but successfully got it reconnected.
After that the winds picked up and we had finally entered the NE Trades. We have on and off been getting up to 22 knots and are averaging a speed of about 6 knots so have been making up for lost hours of the first 2 days. We have traveled well over 500 miles in the 4 ½ days out. We have not seen another boat since the first day. We have seen a lot of flying fish but as for sea life that's about it. The sea birds are driving us nuts! They come along and sit on our solar panels on the dinghy
lift and poop all over the place so Frank has taken to running about like a mad man on his tether, screaming and flipping a towel at them to shoo them off. In response, they began dive bombing him! These are not lovely creatures - they are mean spirited and nasty. One bit his hand. In the end, they won - however, they do not sit on the back of the boat, now there are several who have roosted on the rail above the bow sprit (at the very front), and they leave a mighty mess all over Destiny. We
can't do much about them in rough seas nor at night, but each day that he can, Frank runs up there and sprays them with the anchor wash-down. They cackle and fly off, but come right back. This may be our routine for the next 24 days.