Cuban Chugs "Escape to America"Cuban Chugs --- "Escape to America" Under the cloak of darkness along the northern coast of Cuba small groups of men, women and children climb into their makeshift homemade boat, called Cuban Chugs as friends and family wish them luck and shove them off to sea. Their journey will be dangerous and unpredictable as their crude vessel chugs along trying to make the 90 mile trip across the treacherous Florida Straits. Their hope is first to survive and second to make land in Florida Keys, for if they are intercepted on the waters (“Wet Foot”) between the two countries they will be deported back to Cuba. But if they are lucky enough to make it ashore (“Dry Foot”) in the Keys the US Policy called “Wet Foot, Dry Foot” will provide them with asylum and qualify them for expedited legal permanent resident status and eventually US Citizenship. This treatment is unique to Cuban Refugees and not available to any other migrants.
Bill & Linda's Cuba photo gallery: www.CubaPhotos.net See more Cuban Chug photos at: http://www.pbase.com/wkimages/cubanchugs Visit our “Classic Cuba” slide show: www.wkimages.net/ClassicCuba The Chugs come in all shapes and sizes and are truly makeshift vessels using car engines, small diesel motors even lawnmower engines. Some are made from scrap wooden pallets wrapped with tarps, duct tape and injected with foam, others may be made from metal or may even utilize automobile bodies. They are a testament to Cuban ingenuity and creativity, but reflect great desperation as the journey comes with great risk to life. They are primitive and crude at best and far from seaworthy. Stuffed between the desperate bodies are small bags or backpacks containing their only possessions, sacks of water bottles, small amounts of food, fuel and some spare parts. When they land they will be picked up by the US Coast Guard or US Customs and transported for processing and a new life in Miami. While the numbers are not readily available between Oct 2015 and Feb 2016 there were over 2,500 Cubans who have attempted this trip.
Traveling with little to no navigation skills the Chugs take wildly various journeys some landing on the tourist beaches of Key West while many others end up on one of the many uninhabited remote mangrove islands that dot the Florida Keys. When they are picked up by US Authorities they are required to leave all possessions behind, sometimes the Coast Guard burns the boats but in any case the result is piles of liter and garbage on these pristine remote islands. My Cuban Chug photo gallery has images of all types of Chugs as well as some of the contents abandoned by these brave desperate travelers trying to escape what had to feel like a hopeless situation. Hopefully the US relations with Cuba will be normalized and its people treated like our other Caribbean neighbors until then it seems more and more Cuban migrants are heading out to sea. Postscript: This "Wet Foot, Dry Foot" Policy was ended on Jan 12, 2017 by President Barack Obama and should save many Cuban lives from the perils of crossing the Florida Straits in such non seaworthy vessels. As seen in the Havana Times, Key West's Konk Life, Key West Weekly and Key West Blue Paper
Visit our “Classic Cuba” slide show: www.wkimages.net/ClassicCuba Cuba photo gallery: www.CubaPhotos.net
Check out my online Photo Website at: or http://www.wkimages.net , http://www.videos.wkimages.net / All Rights Reserved Bill & Linda Klipp * Any use of these images requires the prior written permission of Bill or Linda Klipp the photographers, no other uses of any kind including print or electronic are permitted without the prior written permission of the photographer
<script> ga('create', 'UA-78277381-1', 'auto'); </script>
Comments
No comments posted.
Loading...
|
