It's been a week

This evening about 4:30 pm it will have been a week since clearing into the Cayman Islands.  We are still where we grabbed a mooring that first night and about to have the first wind from the south since being here.  It's supposed to be east right now up to 20 but so far I've not seen even 18 knots?  It's starting to swing slightly south and it's about ESE as I write this.  About 1 pm it is supposed to get a bit lighter with max of 15 knots, then by 4 am tomorrow morning it's supposed to drop to 10 knots.  Eventually it will really die off and a front passes through with a chance of rain then stronger 20 to 25 knot NNE winds which continue swinging more NE until the end of my current Grib files which is 8 am Friday the 20th.  We might be on our way by then depending on whether Walter's friend Sue comes to sail with us and we wait that long?

We rigged up a mooring line bridle for the boat with some large diameter spectra type line.  Still with this south wind of 15 to potentially 20 knots we can't both leave the boat today.  Walter will need to check email for the latest on whether or not Sue is coming so I will likely stay aboard to deal with an unlikely mooring failure..  We need new grib files too.  I wish we could get a marine weather update daily while underway?!?!

Walter is pumping the fuel/oil mixture that accumulates in the engine crankcase when we motor.  He researched the problem in a Deisel troubleshooting manual and suspected a leak of some diaphragm on a pump I believe that's part of the fuel system.  The diaphragm looked fine so he switched the whole pump out for a spare he had.  We won't know if that solved that issue until we've motored a fair amount like several hours.   Since the replacing of heat exchanger on our last stop, we've used the engine a couple times for durations of 4 hours or so...maybe longer?  The only problem seems to be the fuel getting into the crankcase oil.

OK Walter returned with the news that Sue is not going to come.. Or it sounded that way due to her really only having 10 days vacation and airfare to Caymans and then back from Guatemala City would total about $1,200.  I suppose I'm looking at a return to Duluth airfare from Guatemala City to be at least $800 though maybe if I get it more days in advance I can find a lower rate?  If it's substantially cheaper I'll just fly to the cities and visit my mom and beg a friend to come get me.   Weather now looks like we might not be setting out until after Friday the 20th?  That will make our stop here in the Cayman's the longest place we've been.  I was at one point hoping we would be in Rio a Dulce about the 20th when I thought we were to just take a rest of 2 or 3 days?  Oh well.  Strong north winds to almost 30 knots are forecast for late Wednesday through Friday so I guess we will wait for that to slack off.  Then we have to check out of the country via the bus to town I suppose the day before we depart.

This is actually from the evening before ... Sunday evening.  Last night it was just gray with no sunset.