Too much wind!

We have a moderate El Nino occuring this year, so we are supposed to see enhanced tradewinds. However we are also being affected by a surface trough and are seeing higher winds than expected or forecast. For the last 2 3 days or so we have had winds 35kn and up. Last night we were seeing 45 and gusts to 50. The wind by itself is not bad, it is the waves that build up. And build up they did. We saw some 20ft swells roll under us. It got pretty rough and quite noisy inside the boat and out.
Happily this morning things have settled down a bit. The winds are back down to around 35 and the swells are a bit more regularly spaced. Hopefully things will mellow out a bit more, and we can get some pleasant sailing in.
Marty is out of commission once again. The tube that attaches the rudder to the steering gear is made to be sacrificial. If you get too much pressure on the rudder the tube breaks, not the important parts. This happened last night . We probably got hit on the side by a wave and off it went. We had the rudder attached by a safety line so we did not loose any parts. I have a spare tube, so I can fix it. Once conditions are smoother I will take a look, not sure if I can reach what I need from on the boat though. It might have to wait till we see a dock or we can launch the dinghy.

Anyway, not much fun the last few days but we are fine (though tired and bruised) and still making progress.