It seems that, in this Mediterranean city, the inhabitants of it keep in their genes the longing for the sea. Perhaps it has to do with the birth of the town in Punta de Guincho, that’s where our stories of the sea come from.

The one that concerns us today comes from its protagonist: Jorge de Armas Nápoles, a navigating engineer, who was kidnapped with his boat in the waters of Cayo Guillermo and taken to Miami, after 11 months of vicissitudes and perseverance, managed to return to his safe heaven.

Jorge

This sailor graduated from the Cuban Naval Academy in 1991. Since his fourth school year, he traveled to various countries. Once he graduated, he was placed in the Cuba Nautical Navy, on the beach of Santa Lucia, because he is a native of Nuevitas.

It was the year 1997, the 2 sailboats that covered the tourist route on the beach had little work and they were sent to Varadero. Jorge was the captain of one of them, during the journey he received instructions to wait in Cayo Guillermo, due to bad weather that lasted almost 10 days.

When they return to the route, the sailor who assisted him was in charge of cooking, Jorge says that after eating he felt unusually tired, confident he asked his partner to guide the rudder for about 2 hours and call him later to continue the trip.

He woke up 10 hours later startled and went up on deck, it was already morning. He asked the sailor the reason why he did not wake him up and seeing the proximity to the Florida coast, he no longer had any doubts. His colleague had kidnapped him and was happy with his triumph.

He began his struggle

The schooner ran aground on Miami Beach, they swam to shore, wet, cold, hungry and disoriented, their nightmare began, which would last 11 long months.

The first night they slept in a construction site, in the distance they heard shots and threats from the criminal gangs that prowled the site.

At dawn, he tried to find the authorities and explain his case, but they always understood that he was just another Cuban who had emigrated and they took him to the detention center, where his captor found relatives and help; Jorge, after a month in prison, was taken to a church where they welcome migrants and offer help.

Three comeback attempts

Before the panorama, from night to dawn turned into an immigrant, the sailor remembered that it is always necessary to return to a safe port at any cost. For this, he looked for employment in the most diverse fronts to raise money and buy a boat that would bring him back home.

In those hard months, his family did not know what happened, those were difficult years of the special period, where communications were very scarce, there were no cell phones and not all families had landlines. From the evidence they thought that like so many in those years, he had decided to go to improve his way of living.

So he managed to build the first boat, which was unfortunate because of its cheapness and left it adrift near the beach, then he started from scratch again, to work to raise more money and buy a boat again.

Already in his second attempt a Cuban who also wanted to return to Cuba joined him, but to illegally take his family north.

Three more months of work and they bought the second boat, better than the first, but with some details that worsened during the voyage and capsized again, this time near the Gulf of Mexico; Thanks to their nautical knowledge, they rowed in search of the current and were once again at ground zero on the Florida coast.

Third time lucky

The failed attempts did not intimidate the sailor, in his eagerness to return to the safe port. New jobs would provide him with the necessary sum of dollars to buy the third schooner, together with his previous partner and one more, who joined the expedition.

Finally, and 11 months after his kidnapping, Jorge de Armas looked for the south course of his compass and turned the rudder back home. Several times he was in danger and gave navigation classes to his cabin boys, because they needed them to return to Florida, as they planned.

Back

The return was tortuous, the relatives of the apprentices were waiting in the mangrove, those who remained returned him to Camajuaní and from there with a garlic and onion vendor, he managed to reach Camagüey.

Once here, he presented himself before the State Security and after investigations and a trial for illegal entry to the island, he achieved his purpose, to stay on the mainland.

It took him nearly two years to recover from the events and he returned to the sea, the one that is everything to him, from which he enjoys the smell, its salty taste and the touvh of his hands guiding the course of his trip at the helm.

The horizon

It was an afternoon at sea, reliving those memories with the helmsman, I was able to appreciate the adventure and I assure you that it scared me.

After so many pitfalls, at the turn of 25 years, Jorge remains unperturbed, I ask him why he insisted so much on returning and did not hear the siren songs that reached him from the north.

He remains silent for a few seconds and his eyes go to the horizon, then he assures me, I am a sailor and we sailors always return, I don’t need much to live, this is my land, that’s why I had to return.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García