“Starboard side. Blue inflatable. Does look like someone may be on it.”
I hadn’t felt the cruise ship slow or turn around, but, sure enough, when I look out our starboard porthole, there is Cuba, which had been on the opposite side of the ship for several hours. And there is a blue raft, several hands waving to grab our attention.
“We are near Cuba. Refugees?”
We can easily see the tall buildings of Havana a few miles away. Four men on a raft with no motor, the front two-thirds covered by a tarp. All signs point to the men fleeing Cuba to seek refuge in the United States as the likely reason they are floating out in the open ocean. What will happen to them now?
Did they just win the lottery, lucking upon a cruise ship mere miles offshore, making the rest of their journey to the United States a luxury voyage? We’ve always treated Cuban immigrants differently than others. They’re refugees, fleeing poverty and corruption and violence for a better life, not illegal immigrants doing the same. They’re not the ones we’re told to worry about. Hatred for communism can trump our hatred for the other.
Or were they extremely unlucky? Perhaps they had planned for months to flee, only to chance upon a cruise ship just 11 miles from shore that would return them to the land they were trying to escape. Just a few hours may have made the difference.
Do they know what will happen to them now that the captain has spotted them and navigated toward their raft?
Crowds gather on the promenade, gawking at this new development in our journey. An escape-to-freedom turned spectacle.
“We are going to take them closer to a place where we will be rendezvousing with the Cuban Coast Guard so that we can take them to safety, out of harm’s way,” the captain says over the loudspeaker.
“Is that really safety?” I think as I sip an IPA. Cigar City, a brewery named for a Cuban immigrant neighborhood in Tampa. A neighborhood where I had one of the best sandwiches in my life, which wouldn’t have been possible without our welcoming of immigrants. Our country, our lives, made better by those seeking to make their own lives better.
“This is something that we must do,” says the captain. Is there a hint of regret in his voice? Or is he just following the rules without thinking?
“¡Cuba libre!” someone yells as the men are transferred to the Cuban Coast Guard ship.
“I don’t foresee any delay in our arrival for tomorrow,” says the captain. No delay for us, no inconvenience. Push the engines to max speed. Stay the course. Do we have to?
Words + Photoby Nick Yoder