Migrants were picked up at sea

  BY CHARLES RABIN

  Seven Cuban migrants who were lost at sea for two days aboard a 16-foot boat were returned to Cuba on Friday by the U.S. Coast Guard.

  The group's journey was a little different from most. The vessel's captain, Pedro Orestes Reyes Matos, had a 20-watt ham radio aboard the boat that
  allowed him to communicate with a group of ham radio operators affiliated with the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue.

  He told those listening -- Brothers to the Rescue leader José Basulto among them -- that the group left in the middle of Monday night from Matanzas Bay
  on the island's north coast, and that within hours of leaving Cuba, the vessel's only engine failed.

  He also said the group passed a Cuban patrol boat along the way. The Cuban boat permitted Matos and his passengers to keep sailing, and wished
  them luck, he said.

  By Wednesday, Basulto, Osvaldo Pla and others were flying a Brothers plane over the Florida Straits trying to pinpoint radio signals sent from Matos's
  boat. At the same time the Coast Guard launched a 36,000-square-mile search with boats, planes and helicopters.

  Late Wednesday morning, Matos and six men and a woman were spotted aboard the blue vessel 30 miles northwest of Cay Sal Bank in the Bahamas.
  The Coast Guard Cutter Nantucket picked them up just after 11 a.m., and transferred them to another Coast Guard boat. Immigration and Naturalization
  Service agents on that boat determined that because the group failed to reach U.S. soil they had to be returned to Cuba. The Coast Guard returned them
  to Bahia de Cabanas.

  Friday, Basulto said it was a mistake to repatriate the Cubans, especially after they had spoken to Brothers of the Rescue, a known enemy of the Castro
  regime.

  ''I think it's a tragic decision by the U.S. government once again,'' he said. ``The U.S. is being the real border patrol for Cuba.''