Comments on: Circumnavigating the Americas in a Smallish Boat: One Island One Ocean https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/12/14/circumnavigating-the-americas-in-a-smallish-boat-one-island-one-ocean/ Sat, 15 Dec 2012 02:41:30 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/12/14/circumnavigating-the-americas-in-a-smallish-boat-one-island-one-ocean/#comment-496750 Sat, 15 Dec 2012 02:41:30 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=14914#comment-496750 Right. They were one of those singing families. Of folk music.

]]> By: Lars https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/12/14/circumnavigating-the-americas-in-a-smallish-boat-one-island-one-ocean/#comment-496749 Sat, 15 Dec 2012 01:49:06 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=14914#comment-496749 (they were a family of singing folksingers)

Which of course immediately suggests the existence of non-singing folksingers, veritable koans in the flesh.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/12/14/circumnavigating-the-americas-in-a-smallish-boat-one-island-one-ocean/#comment-496748 Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:51:59 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=14914#comment-496748 That sounds about right.

]]> By: Eric Lund https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/12/14/circumnavigating-the-americas-in-a-smallish-boat-one-island-one-ocean/#comment-496747 Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:44:32 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=14914#comment-496747 I believe it was a Soviet Satellite or something along those lines

Since you are about the same age (plus or minus a few years) as I, this would have been during the regime of “Baby Doc” Duvalier (who had inherited the title of President-for-Life from his father, “Papa Doc”). The Duvaliers, especially Baby Doc, were nasty dictators, and many Haitians tried to emigrate to Florida by homemade boat. Many did not survive the attempt. The ones who made it to Florida before getting caught by the Coast Guard or INS were almost always sent back to Haiti because they were considered “economic refugees”, which were not welcome. (Contrast with the Cubans, who were generally welcome in Miami after making the much shorter crossing from Cuba.)

Baby Doc apparently wasn’t nice enough to the US; his government fell in 1986, and he fled into exile.

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