No one wore a life jacket.įor centuries, the Bahamas has been a smuggler’s paradise. In the darkness and panic, some on board began spilling over the sides of the boat and into the sea. Battered by rough waters about six miles from the harbor, it began to take on water.

All hoped to reach the promised land for thousands of migrants crossing these waters: Florida. Some had spent years living in the Bahamas. Instead, dozens of Haitians huddled together on board. The boat, described by an investigator as a “pleasure craft,” was supposed to carry only 20 people. It slid away from a rocky beach hidden behind a dilapidated former nightclub known as the Sand Trap, which sat beside a brothel and a block from a building once operated by the U.S.

It was here that a 33-foot boat named Bare Ambition set out after midnight one day last summer. NASSAU, Bahamas - By day, Jet Ski operators zip through the turquoise waters around Arawak Cay, where tourists dine on conch salads from brightly painted wooden shacks.īut by night, inky blue waves become a covert gateway through the vast Caribbean to the United States.

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