"Point the Bow Towards Hope" - Part 1: Exodus

Dear Mom and brother Felipe,

I can finally write you my first letter, almost two months after we left. In reality there was no way for the letter to reach you. We were in no condition to write, frankly. Our mental state was such that we had very little desire to do so, and we had no writing paper or pencils with which to do it! Our main concern was that you both would know that we had arrived safely. We sent many, many messages to you and for the people of Cuba. I’ll try to tell you the story of our very difficult two months here in Guantanamo.

I don’t know if Felipe realized this, but when we went on our way with oars in the water, Carlos, who was the only one rowing, broke two of the oars before we sailed in front of the little castle. They were the oars with knots. Just putting them in the water and rowing normally was enough to break both of them. Dad and the other boy (Juan’s brother) each had one of the oars that Pedro had made. These did not break. We almost turned back after we lost two of the oars, but we decided against it. Returning would be more difficult than you can imagine, and I, at least, would never leave Cuba again if it came to that. That moment when we left was so difficult for me, and, besides, we had tried it too many times and had failed.

As soon as we made a little distance we raised the mast. The wind was blowing mildly from the southeast. When we raised the mainsail and jib and turned the boat north, we started sailing at a pretty good clip. We raise oars, secured them, and started to organize the mess we had in the boat. Dad had blisters on his hands after only twenty minutes of rowing. We made ourselves as comfortable as possible, Carlos at the stern controlling the rudder and watching the compass. I was in the middle section (the closed section) with Dad, and the other boy at the bow. He was in charge of the jib and was the lookout for any vessels coming our way. I was in charge of the mainsail. I had also pulled out the machetes — just in case.

The wind began to blow nicely and the catamaran started to sail very quickly. Everybody was seated quietly in their place, Carlos controlling the rudder and watching the compass. I was following the north star correcting our course if necessary. Everything was going well up to then. Later, after midnight, the only eventful thing that happened was that we spied a very large shark about four miles out. He passed our boat very quickly, probably because all of us were quiet and still, and moving over the sea at a good clip. We saw a merchant ship that was heading towards the port of Havana that was coming straight at us. Fortunately, they saw us and turned sufficiently to miss us completely. We saw various groups of balseros, most of whom we left behind rather quickly because of the forward speed of the catamaran and the good (but not great) wind at our backs.

We sailed in the direction of Santa Cruz (a point at which you should no longer see the coastline). We were not sailing with the coast but heading northeast, out and to the right. When we awoke we were in front of Santa Cruz, far enough away to only see the tower, and the hills of Pan de Matanzas. Up to that moment our journey had seemed ideal; we were in excellent spirits and we had expended very little of our energy in moving the boat. Our meager provisions were intact.

At sunrise we realized that we were on the right course in open waters. We were able to discern the remains of other rafts and flotation devices on the horizon, as best as our eyesight allowed, and we sadly saw many balseros returning because they thought the American “were right around the corner.”

The wind blew from the east-southeast and the catamaran was going really fast. I put on my cap, and I placed my feet on dad. It was like riding in a car. Just to give you an idea how fast the cat was going, we would barely make out sundry objects and raft remains on the horizon and within the hour it was fully visible. We would pass it and an hour later it would be behind us on the horizon again. It was pretty much like this until about noon when we started to see airplanes flying in the zone directly ahead of us. The color of the water was no longer blue but an intense shade of violet. The tower at Santa Cruz was no longer visible, only the hills of Pan de Matanzas. I had heard that once out 50 miles, you would not be able to see the hills. We decided to have our lunch of crackers, guava, and water. The sea was fine; no one was sick or even exhibiting any symptoms of seasickness or dizziness.

I don’t know if it was the smell of the food we were eating or some scrap that we inadvertently dropped overboard, but all of a sudden we saw dozens of fins moving rapidly towards us. My immediate thought was that it was sharks, but we quickly realized that the fins belonged the “friends of the balseros” — dolphins. It looked like an entire pod of dolphins, about 200 of them! They were heading toward us at an amazing rate of speed. When it looked like they would collide with us they swam under the boat and reappeared on our other side in a magnificent jump that displaced an enormous amount of water. At the same time, another group of dolphins jumped and then maintained themselves at the stern of the boat. They looked to us as if they were greeting us — what a fantastic spectacle! You had to be there to appreciate how impressive this was to the four of us. Frankly I was little scared, but I thanked God for permitting me to see this beautiful event on the open sea.

Alter a while they disappeared as quickly as they had come. We continued on our way, despite the calm wind; our sail was not expanding as we wanted and we were not moving: for the first time we were having trouble with the wind. We pulled out the oars and started rowing. Fortunately, after 10 minutes the wind began to blow strongly again in an easterly direction. Not ideal, but sufficient enough to warrant raising the mainsail again. We sailed like that until 4:40 PM and made good progress. According to our calculations, if we had another good day of wind like this one, we would be very close to Key West.

The sea, of course did not cooperate as we wished. It started changing, and the seas started getting very rough, with the wind coming out of the northeast. (It is impossible to navigate towards the place where the wind is coming from unless you zig-zag, but since we had no reference points it was impossible.) We were headed north-northeast, running the risk of heading towards the Gulf. The current was headed in that direction as well and we had no choice but to let it take us there.

After about an hour of sailing the unfriendly waves, the current and the headwind, a “Brothers to the Rescue” plane flew over our position and threw us two life preservers. We started jumping and waving hoping he had registered our position so as to rescue us within a short time. Unfortunately, that did not happen. A while after that a United States Coast Guard plane and a helicopter overflew us. We also saw a USCG Cutter about two miles away from us. We could not row towards them because the wind was against us and it was almost dusk and getting very dark. We hoped against hope that they spied our signals, including the signals we gave them with our flashlights. But we drifted farther and farther away and the dark night enveloped us completely. To say the least we were very upset since we thought they would pick us up. The more time passed the worse our situation got. Very large waves, the strong wind out of the north, and the sky began to close in presaging a large rain storm. We did not know how long it would last or how much rain we would get.

We decided to head towards a boat we saw about two miles away. Every time we got near the boat after major exertion, the boat would speed away from us. We were getting a little desperate, in the middle of the storm in our fragile boat, since it seemed they were playing games with us. We then decided to head north and forget about the boat; the high waves and rain notwithstanding. With difficulty we were heading away from that place, but dangerously closer to the Gulf. The winds and the current seemed to conspire in taking us in that direction.

End of Part 1

(Copyright © 2005 The Universal Spectator in trust for an anonymous author. All rights reserved. The material contained in this story on the BabaluBlog.com website is protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of The Universal Spectator™. English translation Copyright © 2005 The Universal Spectator. All rights reserved.)

Posted by George Moneo at July 11, 2005 11:11 PM

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