Only 24 years old.
Jose Fernandez was also someone who had escaped to Florida from Cuba. He made it on his 4th attempt at the age of 15. On a previous attempt, had had dove into the water to help prevent a woman from drowning. The woman was his mother.
His reward was to be cast into a Cuban prison for awhile.
The Cuban community in South Florida knows the difference between Freedom and the illusion thereof.
Most of those who have made it across the Florida Straits, consigning themselves to the mercy of the sun and the sea on flimsy, makeshift boats and rafts, can tell you of many friends and relatives who didn't make it.
I've heard that the chances leaving Cuba and making it to dry land in the US (Florida) are about 50/50. Can you imagine risking your life on what amounts to a coin toss? How bad do things have to be before you're willing to try that?
Fools like Noam Chomsky and his Leftist ilk (who idolize the Castro Regime and its murderous "revolution") will never understand what it's like for the common people of Cuba.
Let me tell you, people don't risk their life on a 50/50 coin toss if the place they're living in is worth a damn.
I'll never forgive the ignorant pigs who speak so glowingly of Castro. For every rosy comment they make about Cuba from their comfortable American locales, there are a hundred horror stories of oppression, imprisonment, and murder from refugees who know the reality of Tyranny in Castro's Cuba.
I've personally heard dozens of anecdotes from many of them; tales of woe which leave no doubt as to the vicious evil that Castro's revolution still represents.
Like I said, about half the people who try to cross to Freedom don't make it. Their willingness to still make repeated attempts should tell any thinking person everything they need to know about the government of Cuba.
I spit on Castro and all of his blind apologists.
Vote Trump!
I have a lot of respect for the cubans who leave Cuna. They take tremendous risks to be free. During the 12 years or so that I had the honor to serve in a couple Jacksonville, FL P-3 squadrons we fairly routinely kept a look out for rafts and boats in the Florida Straits. These folks would throw together the most outlandish, unseaworthy, cobbled together rafts and pack sometimes dozens of their family members and others and set off across the straits, often without power. We would report their positions and silently wish them well. Never knew whether they made it dry-foot or not. During the Mariel boat lift it was like that 24/7 for a couple of weeks.