By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- Three Cuban immigrants who survived a harrowing voyage to Florida lashed to rafts made with inner tubes said 10-foot swells and the lack of food and water nearly drained all their strength and hope.

In hospital interviews Friday, the survivors said they lost all their food two days into the trip, which began March 18 from Jibacoa, Cuba, and were forced to drink their own urine.

``The wind played games with us. A strong wind came and overturned the raft,'' William Villavicencio Perez, 31, said in Spanish. ``We lost everything that fell in the water. And we had only one oar.''

``I was losing my grip in the final moments before I was found.'' he said, adding: ``I had faith in God and that faith allowed me to be rescued.''

Villavicencio and Carlos Lazaro Bringier Hernandez, 38, were helped to shore by beachgoers Thursday as they approached the South Florida coastline. The same day, Milena Isabel Gonzalez Martinez, 37, was plucked from the ocean by a diver and a rescue helicopter. They were in stable condition Friday at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale.

But five members of the group disappeared at different times during the trip; the Coast Guard ended the search for their bodies Friday.

Gonzalez's husband was the first to disappear, probably Tuesday, Bringier said.

``He was acting normally, then all of a sudden he says, 'I'm leaving.' So he jumped into the water,'' Bringier said. ``When we noticed that he had really jumped, we had lost him behind a large wave.''

The group realized the sea had claimed its second victim overnight.

``We woke up and he was just not there,'' Bringier said.

A decision was made to separate the raft into two, with the stronger members of the group -- Villavicencio, Bringier and a third man -- using one of the rafts to row ahead and look for land or passing boats.

Gonzalez, the only woman on the voyage, was on the second raft with two other men, who were not identified.

Eventually, Gonzalez would see the two men on her raft release their grip and disappear into the ocean.

``They just went into the water on their own. They were desperate, but I stayed calm,'' Gonzalez said from the intensive care unit at the hospital.

Meanwhile, the three on the lead raft inched closer to shore. But in the effort, the companion of Villavicencio and Bringier disappeared.

Gonzalez recalled hallucinating several times that she was being rescued before the Coast Guard showed up.

``I made signals for them to be able to see me and come get me,'' she said. ``I had just drank the last bit of urine. I was dying.''

Gonzalez's twin 14-year-old boys remain in Cuba, and she said she's having trouble dealing with her decision to leave them.

``It was craziness on my part,'' she said. ``If I were in the same position again, I wouldn't do it. It's too risky.''

For Bringier, a former emergency worker with lifeguard training, the decision to flee was a familiar one; he's tried about a dozen times to reach the United States by sea, he said. He said he told his wife he was going out for cigarettes.

``I left right away, and here I am,'' he said.

Lazaro Guzman, a senior U.S. Border Patrol agent, said the agency would interview the three Cubans when they were released from the hospital. If they are found to be foreign nationals, they would be taken to the Krome Detention Center west of Miami, he said.

Under current U.S. policy, Cuban migrants who reach dry land are generally allowed to stay in the United States, while those who are intercepted at sea are normally returned to Cuba.