The Man on the Raft

Since Fidel Castro first rode into Havana in triumph two years ago, 45,000 Cubans have fled to the U.S. Of these, 2,300 have arrived by what the U.S. Immigration Service officially describes as "unusual transport"--hijacking yachts, diverting passenger planes at gunpoint or jumping off Cuban vessels transiting the Panama Canal. But even U.S. officialdom was prepared to admit last week that "unusual transport" hardly seemed adequate to cover the case of Jesus Rafael Saavedra, 23.

For more than a year after he was demobilized from Dictator Fulgencio Batista's defeated army in 1959, skinny Rafael Saavedra supported himself by selling fruit and newspapers in the streets of the city of Santa Clara. In July 1960 he finally found steady work gassing and washing planes for a crop-dusting company at Santa Clara airport. He also found a friend, Ground Crewman Felix Montano Echevarria, 26. Together they dreamed of escaping to freedom and prosperity in the U.S., and Felix, who was taking flying lessons, thought he knew how.

The Last Sight. At 6:20 one morning early this month, a Piper P18 duster plane with Felix at the stick rose over Santa Clara and headed into bucking head winds for the Florida Keys. Rafael, shivering in his thin vinyl jacket, was precariously perched half out of the narrow cockpit, with one leg braced against a wing strut. After two hours of buffeting, Felix, who had never flown in bad weather before, ditched the tiny plane a few hundred yards off Damas Cays, a string of small barren islets about 100 miles northeast of Santa Clara. Swimming for shore, Felix stopped to catch his breath, telling Rafael to push ahead. That was the last time Rafael saw his friend alive.

Stumbling ashore on Damas Cays, Rafael found a rusty, tumbledown radio tower, apparently a World War II leftover. He slept awhile, then began to build a raft of several large pieces of driftwood, which he tied together with some rusty electrical wire he found. On his third day on the island, the waves washed up a rusty but seaworthy 50-gallon drum. Placing the drum in the open center of his 6-ft. by 8-ft. raft, Rafael lashed it loosely with loops of wire so that it would not float off and left himself some slack wire to serve as reins. Then, straddling the drum like a maritime bronco buster, he shoved out to sea under the blazing Caribbean sun. To fight his mounting thirst he took rare, tiny sips of sea water, and when he could fight off sleep no longer, he would slump over his barrel. After a while, the days and nights ran together, and once, in near delirium, Rafael believed he was being inspected by a huge, two-horned sea monster.

The Seventh Day. On the morning of his seventh day at sea, Rafael suddenly saw a slick, 30-ft. Chris Craft shoot past. Though Rafael did not know it, the Gulf Stream had borne him north to within three miles of Miami Beach. Minutes later, the Coast Guard cutter Papaw bore down upon him, responding to a radio message from the Chris Craft.

Last week, abed in Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital, Rafael had little more than bad sunburn and dehydration to show for his ordeal. His nurse was earnestly trying to teach him English, but so far, his vocabulary was largely confined to one word, which for him clearly summed up his present condition and future prospects. "Okay," said Rafael Saavedra over and over again. "Okay."

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