The Florida Strait is known as “death row” because tens of thousands of people have drowned in its waters. Crossing the more than 90 miles (144 km) that separate Cuba and the United States is already a difficult and dangerous challenge in a speedboat or small boat. The Cuban Elián López Cabrera has achieved it on a windsurf board.
He is not the first to do so (at least 7 cases were documented years ago) but his feat is unusual. He did it with a prosthesis connected to the womb to store his stool, a consequence of colon cancer.
This diver and former professional windsurfer jumped into the sea on March 23.
He calculated that it would take 8 hours, but things got complicated and his journey became a nightmare of more than 37 hours that almost cost him his life.
This is his story:
My name is Elián López, I am 48 years old and I am from Varadero, Cuba. Until a month ago he lived there and was a recreational diving instructor for tourism.
Since I was little I have practiced all kinds of nautical activities: underwater hunting, diving, windsurfing, sailing and kite surfing.
In 2008 I was diagnosed with a tumor in the lower rectum. As a high-performance athlete, it was pretty strong news.
I went through chemotherapy, radiation therapy and three major open tummy tucks until in 2009 I ended up with a permanent colostomy.
When the surgeon tells me that a colostomy needs to be done, my biggest concern is whether I can put on the harness for water sports.
He says, nothing happens, you put it there, that’s inside.
Hand Sewn Medical Patches
Not even a year passed and I went back to kite surfing, which is a little less physically demanding.
A good friend guided me to do an irrigation: instead of the big bag you put on smaller and more comfortable patches, which give you more freedom to put on your wetsuit or harness when windsurfing and kite surfing, and even diving and spearfishing .
There are none of these supplies for the care and maintenance of the colostomy in Cuba, not even the traditional bags.
My mother is the one who made me these patches with a bag that must have certain characteristics. She made them with her sewing machine.
There are many things that make life with this condition quite difficult. Other conditions have alternative solutions, the colostomy does not. I know people in Cuba who use a plastic bag with an adhesive tape and it is terrible because of the bad smell and the irritation.
This was one of the main reasons that led me to make the decision to try to come here to the United States.
But, in addition to the material shortcomings of the colostomy issue, I did it for the future and the professional and intellectual development of my daughter.
“The wind was not as the forecast said”
There was a moment when I said: I’m going to get on the board and I’m going to leave.
I planned it for a month and something or two months maximum. Some tell me, “if you plan it a lot you don’t do it”, and it probably would have been like that.
First you see the idea, is it possible? Well, yes, I think it is possible, and you begin to do a little more specific studies, of the wind speed, the course and the date.
The first thing was to choose the material. I chose the board where my daughter, my wife and some friends learned to surf, because it is a board that floats, quite wide and stable. Although I was penalized in speed, if there was an unexpected, as in fact happened, I might rest a bit on it, almost lie down.
I had other much faster, lighter and smaller boards but this one worked as my lifeline. In fact, thanks to this table we can be talking today.
It’s almost 100 miles and my material wasn’t so new anymore, it was almost like me, reaching the end of its useful life (laughs), so I included spare parts for whatever might fail: a mast, a keel, everything that didn’t constitute an excessively large ballast or impossible to transport.
When I get to the beach that day I see that the wind was not as the forecast had said. The day before there had been a very strong wind, very good, but I let it go and said, no, my day is tomorrow.
The sun hadn’t risen yet and I see that the wind is light. And they ask me, are you going to go out like this? This is not what we expected. And I said, yes, I’m going to go out like this.
And maybe if he hadn’t gone out that day he would never have gone out. Because if you start to consider the risks there are many things that can go wrong, you are alone, you have no communication, you have no one to rescue you.
Without water to drink and at the mercy of the waves
The first stage was to leave the territorial waters of Cuba without being chased by the “border guards.” That phase was quite stressful, since due to the low force of the wind it took a long time. Also I ran into a couple of big ships and you have to hide, you’re not going as fast as you’d like.
When I walk away, the other part comes.
The sea conditions in the strait between the north coast of Cuba and the south of Florida are very complicated. Big waves don’t worry me, they are definitely what we are looking for in this sport. The problem is the disorder that there is in the sea, which you say… but what is happening! It looks like a river in some places because the current comes from one direction and at 500 meters it comes from the other.
And then the wind decreases even more. Sometimes it is normal for this to happen around noon, but the hours went by and it did not increase. The reality that it was not going to arrive in a day became more and more present.
Fortunately, around 3:00 pm the wind starts to pick up quite a bit and it’s like an injection of hope. With a lot of adrenaline, I managed to cover a great distance in a reasonable time. That brings me pretty close to the shores here.
I realize that it is inevitable that I will catch the night, but I was at a distance that with that wind speed was a couple of hours to beat the next day.
At night I can’t sail because the state of the sea worsens and, as there is very little visibility, I might stumble and fall; and if I hit myself hard I’m fried; I can get injured and I am on my own, there is no one to help me.
Lying on the board you rest a little, it is true, but sleeping is impossible, not even relaxing, because you are at the mercy of the wind, the waves, and you even had to be pulling the rope with one hand.
In the middle of the night a wave throws me into the water, I lose my vision glasses and that also makes it difficult for me to read the GPS. Many little things that were happening were leading me to a complicated state, to something serious that almost ended badly.
At night I lost part of my water reserve and at dawn, when I took out the last pomo (bottle) that I had left and went to have a crop (drink), it had been contaminated with seawater.
Saved by a sim card
At dawn the wind had loosened a lot and changed direction a little. The current coming from the Gulf had moved me a little north of my planned course, but at the same time it had brought me a little closer to the coast. However, as the wind had changed, she might no longer keep her course to the closest point to the coast; then I had to go pulling like a tangent towards another point more distant and a little more difficult to reach.
Fortunately, following browsing for a while on the second day, the phone that I brought with a sim card from a US line begins to receive notifications. I realize that I have network coverage and start writing to a few friends here and there regarding my situation.
They ask me to notify the coast guard so that they can rescue me and I say no. There is a possibility that I will be returned to Cuba and everything will return to zero, or even worse, because this would probably mean losing my job and being classified by the authorities.
I said, I’m going to keep trying, I think I can.
There were times when I thought I was going to die, because I looked around me and there was nothing, and even having communication I saw that help was not coming and I was very worried regarding my physical condition.
Something as simple as standing up on the board and pulling the sheet to get the sail out of the water was very difficult for me. Despite that, I managed to do it, I took out the sail and sailed a few meters until I lost my balance and fell into the water.
With great physical effort, without water or food, with very slow progress at the cost of great effort, I am realizing that it will not be possible. I ask that they call the coast guard.
“And your mom is a nurse?”
When the boat arrives, a person identifies himself in Spanish: we are from the United States Coast Guard, we have come to help you, you need medical attention.
Seeing that they transfer me to land, that they are going to take me to a hospital, I begin to realize that maybe I have a chance to be allowed to stay in the United States.
In the ambulance, the nurse tells me, but what is that you have there?
I tell him, I have a colostomy. And she says, yes, I know that’s a colostomy, but what is that you have on? I mean, it’s a patch. And she says, but I’ve never seen that, where did you get it?
That’s what my mom does for me, I answer. And she says, but, and your mom is a nurse? And well, I say, my mother is a mother, a mother from Cuba, who has to be creating, that she has to be innovating and looking for solutions for her son, how can she not be?
Upon completion of the tests and seeing that I was responding well to treatment, I am transferred from the hospital to the border patrol detention center. There’s the normal process: fingerprints, DNA, photography, a brief interview, and then they release me without giving me any further explanations.
A future for my daughter
Now the first thing is to regularize my legal situation and start all the paperwork to be able to work in something related to nautical, perhaps diving, on a boat, in a windsurfing or kite surfing school, giving lessons or renting equipment.
Bringing my wife and daughter is my number one priority: my wife is my right hand, left hand and both feet, she is my nurse, she is my dietician; she is my companion in life during my illness, in the years following and in this latest madness.
What I most want to achieve is for her to be with me and for our daughter to be with us here as well, which was definitely the greatest incentive to do this.
My dream is for my daughter to have the opportunity to have a different future in a country where things are very different from the country where she is living, and for her to be in a place where she can develop as a person, as a professional, lead a different life from the that we had in Cuba.
