Accounts differ on whether couple floated to Biscayne Bay

 BY ALFONSO CHARDY

 Marine experts said Thursday it's highly unlikely that the two adult survivors of the
 Elian Gonzalez shipwreck tragedy could have drifted into a marina facing
 Biscayne Bay as they claim.

 Instead, the experts said, survivors Arianne Horta and boyfriend Nivaldo
 Fernandez would more likely have floated in ocean waters east of Key Biscayne.
 A fisherman now admits that this is where he found them, although his account is
 contradicted by another eyewitness.

 ``It's highly unlikely, in my experience, that someone would have drifted from the
 oceanside to the bayside,'' said Stephen Baig, an oceanographer at the National
 Hurricane Center. He said currents in the bay are self-contained and ``only
 slightly influenced by the ocean currents.''

 John Wang, professor of applied marine physics at the Rosenstiel School of
 Marine and Atmospheric Science near Crandon Park Marina, where Horta and
 Fernandez turned up, said winds could have pushed the couple into the bay -- but
 only if the winds were stronger than five miles per hour. Coast Guard records
 show wind speed at about four miles per hour on the morning of arrival Nov. 25.

 Pinpointing how Horta, 22, and Fernandez, 33, came ashore is key to resolving a
 major mystery of the Elian saga which began to unfold last Thanksgiving Day
 when two men on a fishing trip rescued the boy two miles off Commercial
 Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.

 While attention has been focused on Elian, little has been said about how Horta
 and Fernandez arrived. And now that newly released U.S. Coast Guard telephone
 and radio logs and other documents point to inconsistencies in their story, it's
 more relevant than ever to establish precisely what happened.

 Horta and Fernandez are the only sources of information about the voyage that
 brought Elian to U.S. shores on the same day the couple turned up at Crandon
 Park Marina on the west side of the Rickenbacker Causeway near Key Biscayne.

 In interviews this week, Horta insisted that she and Fernandez swam to the
 marina when they spotted the lights of Key Biscayne.

 But a fisherman listed as a witness in a Miami-Dade Police report told The Herald
 he rescued them at a spot in the Atlantic Ocean perhaps as much as seven miles
 east of Key Biscayne.

 Reniel Carmenate, an air conditioning equipment installer, disclosed this piece of
 information only after being told that Horta insisted that she and Fernandez swam
 to shore. Initially, Carmenate said he had found Horta and Fernandez floating in
 the water near Crandon Park Marina.

 Carmenate did not explain why he did not come forward before with the account
 about the offshore rescue.

 In an interview, Carmenate said he took Horta and Fernandez to Crandon Park
 Marina before notifying authorities because he wanted to prevent the couple from
 being returned to Cuba. Under U.S. law, Cuban immigrants intercepted at sea are
 generally repatriated, while those who reach shore usually get to stay.

 The unusual circumstances of how Horta and Fernandez came to be at Crandon
 Park Marina initially raised the suspicions of the U.S. Border Patrol that the Elian
 voyage was a smuggling operation, according to the newly-released Coast Guard
 records.

 Those suspicions were reinforced by a Miami-Dade Police report prepared by
 Officers Frank Rodriguez and Osvaldo Castillo who interviewed Horta and
 Fernandez at Crandon Park Marina Nov. 25.

 The report said Horta and Fernandez paid $2,000 to board the homemade boat
 that ostensibly capsized late Monday, Nov. 22, throwing all 14 people aboard into
 the water leaving only Horta, Fernandez and Elian as survivors.
 Horta denied this week that she or Fernandez paid any money for the trip.

 Juan Ruiz, a window installer and another witness listed in the Miami-Dade Police
 report, said he was contacted by the Border Patrol. Wednesday, Ruiz said he
 told the Border Patrol what he saw: a delirious and blistered Horta and Fernandez
 lying nearly unconscious in the water tied to an inner tube floating at Crandon
 Park Marina .

 Ruiz's story raises even more questions. Ruiz said he saw Horta and Fernandez
 in the water shortly after he and a friend docked their boat following a night of
 fishing.

 Ruiz said he jumped into the water and brought Horta to a boat ramp, then
 jumped back in and fished out Fernandez.