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Leaving Cuba: A father and son risk lives at sea

ADVANCE FOR SATURDAY DEC. 27, 2014 In this photo taken Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014, Antonio Cardenas recounts the 10 day journey to the United States in his hotel room in Miami. Three months after the men’s arrival, Obama surprisingly announced efforts to restore ties and make it easier to travel back and forth from the island they fled. “Did you hear the news?” a relative from Tampa, Florida called excitedly. “Maybe you won’t have to wait so long to see your family.” Had they known relations between the U.S. and Cuba were about to improve, Cardenas said he would have risked the journey anyway, because change comes slowly, and Cuba won’t likely equal the United States in opportunity anytime soon. “I’m not looking back,” Cardenas said. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)
ADVANCE FOR SATURDAY DEC. 27, 2014 In this photo taken Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014, Antonio Cardenas recounts the 10 day journey to the United States in his hotel room in Miami. Three months after the men’s arrival, Obama surprisingly announced efforts to restore ties and make it easier to travel back and forth from the island they fled. “Did you hear the news?” a relative from Tampa, Florida called excitedly. “Maybe you won’t have to wait so long to see your family.” Had they known relations between the U.S. and Cuba were about to improve, Cardenas said he would have risked the journey anyway, because change comes slowly, and Cuba won’t likely equal the United States in opportunity anytime soon. “I’m not looking back,” Cardenas said. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) ADVANCE FOR SATURDAY DEC. 27, 2014 In this photo taken Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014, Antonio Cardenas recounts the 10 day journey to the United States in his hotel room in Miami. Three months after the men’s arrival, Obama surprisingly announced efforts to restore ties and make it easier to travel back and forth from the island they fled. “Did you hear the news?” a relative from Tampa, Florida called excitedly. “Maybe you won’t have to wait so long to see your family.” Had they known relations between the U.S. and Cuba were about to improve, Cardenas said he would have risked the journey anyway, because change comes slowly, and Cuba won’t likely equal the United States in opportunity anytime soon. “I’m not looking back,” Cardenas said. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

By Associated Press 5 min read

MIAMI (AP) – It was hot and dark and mosquitoes bit at his skin as 23-year-old Jose Fuente Lastre boarded a raft with eight other men, intent on fleeing Cuba.

Their flimsy vessel built from scraps of metal, wood and inner tubes had failed repeatedly. Oil leaked. The propeller sputtered.

“I’m not going,” Lastre had announced. “It seems we weren’t meant to leave.”

“Don’t be a fool,” shot back his stepfather, Antonio Cardenas. “After trying this hard you have to try again.”

Four of their companions decided it was too risky, jumping out and wading back to shore.