Sunsets and Yolas

Thursday, July 19, 2018

I started noticing more helicopters than I recall as normal. They were obviously scanning the coastline, looking for something. There were always helicopters, looking for drug drops, however, mostly they were looking for Dominicans.

I know it went on while I lived in Puerto Rico, but I just didn’t remember so much of it. Maybe the “traffic” has increased or maybe it’s because I wasn’t working this trip so had more time to notice it. I’m not sure which, although I do recall waving to the helicopters during my morning walk and swim (I’m guessing they didn’t like that very much). I don’t know much about the drug trade, however I do know more about the Dominican “aliens” trying to get into the United States in hopes of a better life.

Since the beginning of the New Year Border Patrol Agents have apprehended 49 “aliens” that have illegally entered the United States via the Mona Passage. They were all taken to Ramey Border Patrol Station for processing.

Some fishing charter boats would take the Dominican Refugees as far as Mona Island, dress them in swimsuits and snorkel gear and drop them on the beach. The second crew would pick them up on Mona Island and sail or motor them back to Puerto Rico delivering them as tourists. I think those may have been the lucky ones that had family or friends in the US and money to make the journey.

More commonly, these “Illegals” are transported in rustic homemade and extremely unsafe wooden vessels called “yolas”. These yolas were underpowered usually with a single outboard motor and so overloaded with passengers and no life vests. It was not uncommon to come across one of these wooden vessels on my morning beach walk. Clothing and empty water bottles would be scattered around the boat. The clothing they wore on the journey was always discarded on the beach and whoever picked them up would bring fresh clothing, I guess so they had nothing to identify them as Dominican. The engine was always gone – repurposed as part of the payment for the “rescue” effort.

Somewhere in my photos I must still have pictures of a discarded boat with clothing and empty bottles scattered around, but I cannot seem to find one right now., so am borrowing one from the internet of a discarded yola. The second photo of my sister Linda is a boat discarded new AWNHI. I’m not positive it was a transport vessel, but it is very likely it was. Last is a loaded yola making the crossing. Luckily they had 2 engines…..

I do not know how you feel about it, but, these people (most who do not even know how to swim) must be so brave and so desperate to make that crossing that I sometimes think maybe we need to reconsider “aliens”.

I want to end this post with a sunset. It’s not Florida and it is definitely not the best of the sunsets I witnessed in Puerto Rico, but, I was too busy vegging out, reading, or getting massages to remember to take a phone with me!