BY SERGIO R. BUSTOS

With the wind beginning to whip up and seas growing rougher, Coast Guard officials said they spotted a 50-foot freighter teetering in the waters off the Haitian coast with more than 200 migrants aboard.

As they approached the grossly overcrowded vessel, Coast Guard officials reported that several migrants leaped into the waters in an aggressive attempt to climb aboard the Coast Guard lifeboats.

Coast Guard rescuers immediately pulled out those in the water and took them to safety along with the rest of the migrants aboard the freighter, which was weighed down with men, women and children. Among the human cargo: a baby and a woman who was eight months pregnant.

The dramatic rescue effort took place Monday night about 25 miles west of Ile de la Tortue, Haiti.

On Thursday, the Coast Guard reported they had returned all 242 migrants to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

Capt. Peter Brown, the Coast Guard's Seventh District chief of law enforcement, said in a statement: "If not for the patrol presence of our cutters off the coast of Haiti, there easily could have been a major loss of life in this ill-advised attempt to reach the United States illegally.

''Alien migrant interdiction operations are as much humanitarian missions as they are border security missions,'' he added. "The Coast Guard will continue to rescue Haitian migrants from their peril at sea and will always do so in a professional manner that preserves the dignity of all people.''

Since the start of the year, the Coast Guard has rescued and returned 599 Haitian migrants to Haiti.