Cuban tries crossing on Styrofoam boat



A Cuban refugee used this boat of Styrofoam in a bid to reach U.S. shores. (Courtesy U.S. Customs and Border Protection)



Over the years, Cubans have used just about every kind of craft imaginable to make the 90-mile crossing to the Florida coast. There was the floating 1951 Chevrolet pickup, the floating taxi, the wooden cargo crate -- and untold numbers of wobbly rafts.

Some of these jury-rigged vessels have actually worked. In many other cases, people fleeing Cuba have perished at sea.

Now, as the Miami Herald first reported, a Cuban migrant has attempted the crossing in a "makeshift, seven-foot vessel" made of Styrofoam.

"A U.S. surveillance aircraft patrolling the Florida Straits spotted the ... vessel 51 miles south of Marathon and, on closer inspection, discovered a man aboard who turned out to be a severely dehydrated Cuban migrant," the Herald reports.

The U.S. Coast Guard picked up the man before dawn Tuesday. He told authorities he left Havana on June 20.

A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Juan A. Muñoz-Torres, said the man was given an IV for hydration purposes but that no hospitalization was required. He will be repatriated some time this week.

The vessel was destroyed, Muñoz-Torres said, because it was "a hazard to navigation."



A surveillance image of the Styrofoam boat before it was intercepted. (Courtesy U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

