Cuban rafters stopped from marking Fourth in USA

Alan Gomez | USA TODAY

ABOARD THE U.S.C.G.C. CHARLES SEXTON — When 24 Cubans secretly departed their island on a boat they'd built themselves this week, they packed it tight with only basics to survive the treacherous, 90-mile voyage to America.

Gallons of water. Crackers. Pieces of fish. A medical kit. And two bottles of Havana Club, Cuba's signature rum.

"We were going to celebrate by drinking them on July 4th in the United States," one of them said.

Instead, they were intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Charles Sexton and spent the week aboard the ship, waiting to be returned to Cuba. More cruelly to their shattered dreams, they drifted within sight of Key West as Coast Guard personnel interviewed and medically screened them.

Then the cutter prepared to take them back under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows island residents who simply touch U.S. soil to stay but requires those caught at sea to be returned home.

The Coast Guard invited this reporter to observe such an operation under rules that bar interviews with the captured Cubans or photographs of them, although overheard comments were allowed for publication.

Aboard the cutter, the Cubans did not know President Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro announced a deal Wednesday to reopen embassies in Washington and Havana. That was the latest step in a process that began in December to end a half-century of hostilities and move to normalize relations.

Embassies in both capitals will make it easier for Americans and Cubans to travel to each others' countries, but not in time to help these rafters.

Some said they couldn't afford to pay for a visa to the USA, let alone an airline ticket. They wondered whether Cuban authorities would ever grant them permission to travel to the USA now that they'd been caught trying to flee Cuba illegally.

In a country where the average salary is about $20 a month, just an interview for a visa to the U.S. costs $160 and round trip flights to Miami cost several hundred dollars.

Lt. Kevin Connell, commanding officer of the Charles Sexton, said his crew saw a "significant spike" in rafters fleeing Cuba after the thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations in December. Connell said information, "or misinformation," in Cuba led many to believe that their guaranteed entry once on U.S. soil might soon end, prompting a rush to sea.

That's why he closely followed Wednesday's announcement by Obama and Castro to ensure his crew was ready for another possible exodus from the island.

"It's not something that you can predict, but you can prepare for," Connell said.

Leaning over a railing looking to shore, one of the Cuban migrants asked if the tiny land mass on the horizon was really Key West. When he learned that it was, he hung his head and talked about jumping ship and trying to swim to shore.

The man was talked out of the decision, but he and others couldn't stop lamenting how close they'd come to making it to shore. They spoke of the time they spent constructing their 18-foot boat, the money they spent finding a working boat engine, the agony of seeing all that sunk by Coast Guard officials to remove the navigating hazard from the sea.

Mostly, they spoke of returning home and starting from scratch, building boats to try again. One man said this was his fourth attempt. Another said it was his fifth. Another said it was his 17th.

Embassies or not, political normalization or not, all vowed they would take to sea and try yet again.