Issue link: http://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25065
CUBA FOCUS Kayaking a Sea of Dr PHOTO, MARLENE MARINO eamS text:DianeLaCeYAlien PHOTO, DIANE LACEY ALLEN As a iournalist( I'd heard fear in the voices of Cubans who had hidden In mangroves waiting for patrol boats to pass. I'd watched as men fashioned makeshift rafts with bent brown backs. They worked feverishly just down the hill from where Ernest Hemingway gathered wool for his seafaring tales. That was 1994. Two years later, more than 20 boats, including mine, left Key West, Florida to protest the Cuban downing of two "Brothers to the Rescue" planes. Only half of the boats made it to the Florida Straits before turning back because of foul weather. It was in those international waters-where Cuban natives stopped to toss flowers and proclaim "Viva Cuba libre"-that the plan to paddle the island formed in my mind. In the defiance of the day, why not dream of something many travelers wouldn't, or couldn't, do? All the reasons I shouldn't kayak in Cuba-patrols confusing me with someone leaving the island, the possibility of being hiiacked and the general pain-in-the-ass of getting a boat into the country-became fodder for my obsession. Since Internet searches, travel agents, outfitters and people who had made frequent trips to the island knew of no place to rent kayaks, I'd have to bring my own. My fiberglass sea kayak was impractical. A folding kayak would make the roughly 45-pound luggage restriction, and could be assembled once I got to Cuba.