Writings - Cuba Crossing
Cuban excursion turns into relief effort
Thursday, April 1, 1993
NORTHVILLE – It started out as a simple boating excursion.
Now Stewart Oldford, Sr. and John Genitti just want to get through it without sparking an international incident.
Oldford, owner of Northville Lumber, originally planned on cruising over to Cuba April 18 for a leisurely one-week boating trip, but he has since been recruited into a flotilla bringing humanitarian aid to the beleaguered island nation.
The crossing, aboard Oldford's 42-foot trawler, has been in the works for more than a month. Genitti said he talked his way aboard when he overheard Oldford's son discussing the trip at Northville Lumber. He called Oldford on the spot, introduced himself and mentioned that he owns an identical boat. He was then invited along for the ride.
It was when Genitti began phoning friends for information on Cuba that the trip took a turn for the weird.
He first called a friend in Key West, who hooked him up with John J. Young, editor and publisher of a Key West newsletter called the 'InCUBAtor." The publication bills itself as 'A Caribbean newsletter hatching ideas for progress in the Florida straits."
"I got John Young's phone number and called him and my life hasn't been the same since," Genitti said.
Young provided Genitti with plenty of background on the island, but then asked if he would mind bringing a few over-the-counter drugs across on the trip, since the island is plagued by shortages of medical supplies. Genitti agreed.
Young already had flown a shipment of aspirin, antibiotics and other medicine to the island and hand-delivered them to a provincial hospital in Matanzas, in apparent defiance of a U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba. Now he is recruiting several boaters into the effort, but this time he is seeking the necessary licenses from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The travelers should have expected some complications from the start.
Relations between Cuba and the United States have been icy ever since the Cuban Revolution in 1959 ousted the Batista regime and Fidel Castro took control. The communist country has been off-limits to U.S. citizens on and off ever since the revolution, and travel is only permitted to certain U.S. Citizens including government employees on official business, news people on assignment, and scholars conducting professional research.
That did not deter Genitti, who was granted press credentials by The Northville Record and plans to file articles on the trip upon his return.
Oldford said the idea for a trip to Cuba came to him several months ago as he was wondering where to take his 48-foot Grand Banks, the Newfie Bullet.
"I've been to the Bahamas four or five times, and I've been around the Keys," he said. "I got to thinking, where else is there to go?"
The allure of the island republic is not its political turmoil, he said.
"I'm not interested in the political situation as much as I'm interested in the island and going to a new place. ... You go there to meet the people and see what they're like.
"Someday when the country opens up there'll be a fleet of boat traffic over there. I think we're probably just a little bit ahead of where everybody else is going."
Oldford also brushes off comparisons of this trip to the recent ill-fated voyage of another local entrepreneur.
Restaurateur Chuck Muer, his wife Betty and friends George and Lynn Drumney of Grosse Pointe Park have been missing since a massive storm struck the east coast two weeks ago. Muer's 40-foot sailboat, Charley's Crab, was last seen leaving a Bahamas marina March 12 and an unintelligible 911 call was received from his cellular phone just before dawn March 13.
Muer is the former owner of Rocky's of Northville at 41122 West Seven Mile Road. The eatery, then known as Northville Charley's, was the first of what has since grown into a 22-restaurant chain of seafood restaurants from Michigan to Florida.
Oldford said he last cruised the Bahamas in November, "quite close to where (Muer) was.
"We were down in August, too, when Hurricane Andrew started coming our way. We hightailed it back to shore and headed over to Ft. Myers to avoid it."
Oldford himself has ridden out several storms in the Newfie Bullet.
"I've been out there in 10-12 foot seas and 30-mph winds," he said. "I wouldn't want to be out in any worse weather than that."
Oldford said his ship, a full-displacement trawler with a deep keel for stability, is well-suited to rough weather. "It's a good old slow boat, but quite seaworthy," he said.
The Newfie Bullet carries an inflatable life raft, single sideband radio, UHF radio and navigational equipment including loran (Long Range Navigation) that uses radio signals from ground stations to pinpoint a vessel's position, he said.
"For our purposes, I feel we've got plenty of communications equipment," he said.
Oldford said he is more concerned about the political climate upon his return than the weather at his departure.
"Believe me, we won't leave port until we get a good weather clearance," he said. "The main problem's getting back through customs and it's a sad situation. It's not like we're subversives or anything."