LISA ARTHUR, BRUCE TAYLOR SEEMAN
 and ELAINE DE VALLE
 

 A 5-year-old boy found clinging to an inner tube three miles at sea on Thursday morning
 was among three survivors of a boating catastrophe that may have killed 11 refugees
 fleeing Cuba, the Coast Guard said.

 The boy, rescued off Fort Lauderdale, was listed in stable condition. After he was pulled
 from the water, searchers found the body of a woman who apparently had been tied to the
 inner tube but broke free.

 ``The ocean is a dangerous place. And on this day, Thanksgiving, some family, somewhere,
 is having to face a horrible, horrible tragedy,'' said Mike Gilhooly, a spokesman for the U.S.
 Immigration and Naturalization Service. ``We've learned it time and time again.''

 Fourteen Cubans left Cardenas, a city east of Havana on Cuba's north coast, at 4:30 a.m.
 Sunday aboard a 17-foot aluminum boat, the Coast Guard said. The boat broke apart and
 sank somewhere between the island and South Florida about two days ago.

 Seven refugees drowned almost immediately, survivors told rescuers. The remaining
 seven clung to two inner tubes -- five on one, and two on the other.

 Those two -- a 33-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman -- were picked up by
 fishermen and brought to the Crandon Park Marina on Key Biscayne at about 6:30
 Thursday morning.

 ``We are desperate for news,'' Ivonne Suarez, who believed her aunt and several
 cousins were among the 14 on the boat, said outside Jackson Memorial, where the
 two older survivors were listed in fair condition. ``We need to keep looking for them
 and save them. . . . Maybe they can find them. I have hope and faith that they are alive.''

 Throughout Thursday, the Coast Guard searched from Islamorada to Boca Raton,
 using a Falcon jet, three helicopters, the 110-foot cutter Maui, a patrol boat based
 in Miami Beach, and a 41-foot rescue boat from Fort Lauderdale.

 Also, Brothers to the Rescue founder and leader Jose Basulto took up a plane to
 help search after receiving a 7 a.m. phone call. He returned, dejected, about 2
 p.m.

 ``Nothing. We found nothing. Poor people,'' he said. ``It's very difficult when what
 you are looking for is the size of a person only. Imagine trying to find a coconut
 floating in the water from a plane flying at 150 miles an hour over the sea.''

 POLICE CALLED

 Authorities were alerted to the tragedy early Thursday morning when police were
 called to Crandon Park Marina. The man and woman told the Coast Guard that
 after the boat broke apart, the seven passengers who were left clung to inner
 tubes that had been towed behind the boat.

 Firefighters from Station 15 on Key Biscayne responded.

 ``I've had other rafters, a couple of encounters,'' firefighter Jose Huguet said.
 ``These two had been in the water, you could tell.

 ``Some of the others didn't even ask for water. But these were definitely rafters.
 They had low blood pressure, they were thirsty, they couldn't walk, really. They'd
 been through an ordeal.''

 The two Broward fishermen who discovered the 5-year-old boy described much
 the same situation.

 The cousins were on an early morning dolphin expedition when they saw an inner
 tube bobbing in the ocean shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday.

 ``I told my cousin we should cast over there because fish tend to school under
 things,'' said Sam Ciancio, of Lighthouse Point. ``We caught a dolphin, and then
 my cousin said to me, `Hey, I think there is somebody in that tube.' ''

 A HAND MOVING

 Ciancio, 41, was skeptical at first, thinking maybe someone had lashed a doll to
 the tube. But his cousin, Donato Dalrympler, 39, of Lauderhill, insisted -- saying
 he thought he saw a hand moving.

 When Ciancio realized a child was clinging to the tube, he pulled off his shoes
 and pants and jumped into the water. He swam back toward the boat, towing the
 boy and lifting him into Dalrympler's arms.

 ``I've traveled around the world as a missionary, but I have never felt like this,''
 Dalrympler said. ``What a gift to find this kid today. I would like to see his face
 again.''

 The pair traveled to Joe DiMaggio's Children's Hospital in Hollywood later
 Thursday to visit the boy, but authorities would not let them, Ciancio said.

 ``All I care about is that he is OK and that he has someone to take care of him,''
 he said. ``I don't want to see him end up in the system. If there is no one to look
 after him, I will look after him.''

 The boy told the Coast Guard that his parents had drowned.

 An hour later, the body of a woman between 50 and 60 years old was recovered
 five miles to the south. The boy told the Coast Guard that a woman had been on
 the inner tube with him and his parents. Rope found with the woman's body was
 similar to rope on the tube, authorities said.

 OUTSIDE HOSPITAL

 Late Thursday, Cubans who believed their relatives might have been on the boat
 gathered outside Jackson Memorial Hospital, where the two survivors from Key
 Biscayne were taken.

 Hospital officials had good news for Ranieri Horta. His niece, Arianne Horta, was
 one of the two rafters brought into the Crandon Park marina.

 ``Her father called us to tell us that they were going to come out [of Cuba],'' said
 Mirta Rivero, who accompanied Ranieri Horta.

 In an interview with WSVN-Channel 7, she said relatives had begun to worry that
 they had been lost. She said she couldn't identify the boat's other passengers,
 and was mostly concerned with Arianne Horta's status.

 ``They can't send her back, right? Because I know if they reach land, they can't
 send them back,'' Rivero said.

 She was upset that hospital and law enforcement officials would not let Ranieri
 Horta see his niece.

 ``They don't tell us anything, they don't let us see them,'' Rivero said. ``What is
 the purpose of that?''

 The relatives said the group was being brought from Cuba by a man named
 Lazaro Moreno, who is believed to be the 5-year-old boy's stepfather.

 WENT BACK

 Moreno came to the United States from Cuba on a raft and went back recently to
 get his stepson and his wife, relatives said. The boy's father is believed to be a
 police officer in Cuba.

 On her radio show, Cuban American National Foundation spokeswoman Ninoska
 Perez-Castellon said the tragedy represents the tyranny of Fidel Castro's
 government.

 ``That image of a child floating alone in an inner tube is the image with which Fidel
 Castro should be received in Seattle if he shows up,'' she said, referring to the
 possibility the Cuban leader will attend a World Trade Organization meeting in
 that city next week.

 She also compared the voyage of the rafters to those made by pilgrims who first
 landed on Plymouth Rock. ``They were the first refugees. The pilgrims would not
 have survived without the natives' help,'' Perez-Castellon said.

 No decision had been made Thursday evening on how long the search will
 continue.

 ``You have to consider a lot,'' said Petty Officer Scott Carr, a Coast Guard
 spokesman. ``You have to take survivability rates into consideration. The boat
 went down Tuesday. The longer someone is in the water, the less chance they
 can survive.''

 Border Patrol officials, who took the lead in the investigation, said it wasn't clear if
 this was a case of alien smuggling.

 ``We're just trying to piece together the facts,'' said Verne Eastwood, special
 agent with the Border Patrol's anti-smuggling unit and lead investigator on the
 case.
 

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald