La Mona lays directly opposite to the Village. Tucked against the hills and the water it is its own little paradise. White sand beach separates the water from the summer homes. There is only 1 little beach bar that serves good food and strong drinks. That is the site where the birthday shenanigans will go down.
Several of the lady’s have birthdays with in days of each other. So dressed in some of our craziest costumes we head for the beach. Food, drinks, and games keep us entertained for hours. Music keeps us dancing. The bar tenders and staff join in. Some of the local ladies come by and join in. It was a great time. The party went until the batteries for the lights went out.
The next morning or maybe afternoon when everyone started to emerge from their beds and check the weather we all realized that there was some activity south that we needed to pay more attention too. Many of us had seen it begin to form days earlier but expected for it to crumble away and vanish. Doesn’t look like it wants to do that.
With out waisting any time some boats decided to carry on with the plan to watch the storm and return to Don Juan if it continues to build. We all believe it is going to die out. Besides. there has only been 1 hurricane that had made it all the way up to this area. It just doesn’t happen. Still we keep an eye out.
We staid in La Mona mostly because Kirby staid and it was quiet. We could get some work done. And there really wasn’t any good wind to push us to the Village so we just staid. While everyone else was motoring their sailboats around we were back to our morning coffee on Lodos along with dinners and story sharing. We allow a few days to pass keeping an eye on the ever growing storm.
Over the next few days the storm continues to build. It is apparent that it will build into a Hurricane. We haven’t even been at it a year and we are already in a hurricane. We start to plan for the what ifs. To be honest we were getting anxious. We began listing our priorities. We began listing our thresholds. At this point in time the only thing we knew was they were predicting this system to turn into a hurricane and head up into the Sea.
We simply have to monitor and wait. Not knowing how this works or what to expect was nerve racking. Lucky for us we had some cool headed peeps among us. We also had some veteran hurricanes who shared their knowledge and experiences in a positive and helpful way. Giving us information to send home as the storm built and started hitting the news outlets.
We continued to watch it gain intensity. Tropical Depression wind speeds of 38 mph or less, Tropical Storm wind speeds of 39 to 73 mph and then reaching Hurricane sustained winds of 74 mph and higher. Her name is Kay. At times it increased to a cat 2 but then would weaken to a cat 1. Three days out we move to Don Juan under dinghy power. There isn’t a spit of wind in the Bay. It is as if Kay has sucked every breeze out of the surrounding areas.
Some boats had already headed over to Don Juan. They came to great us like a large dinghy brigade. We found our spot and with the force of 4 dinghy’s we set that Roca with more horse power than our old diesel ever had. Pretty sure it set and came out on the other side of the earth. By damn we aren’t going anywhere! The bay is alive with worker bees. Each messing with their ground tackle, looking at their rigging, and mostly fussing with their space until it is time to take it all down. It is still it is hot.
Max and Karen on Lusty have an idea. Over the VHF we hear “since we will all be related after this Kay chic comes through come join us for a float” Meet and Greet. Max pumps up his massive floating pad throws on a cooler and we see him in the dinghy dragging Karen in her beach chair atop the float over to the shallows where they begin the floating. They are going to be fun. Soon everyone is jumping in their dinghies and heading over. It was a great way to get to know everyone. We all introduced our selves and offered our help to each other and shared fears and solutions. It was a great afternoon and a great way for everyone to relax and pass the time.
We get on a first name basis with everyone really fast. John and Meredith on Jackdaw, Matt Amy and their kids on Double Deuce, Kurtis and Sabrina on Taku are the boats directly around us. Over the next 24 hours more and more boats show up. Again and again you hear over the radio “welcome, our anchor is here, need any help?” Max randomly plays music over his PA system as the skies begin to darken and we see our first raindrops.