PADRE ISLAND, Texas — The folks at Mission-Aransas Reserve are always combing the beach, and they come across some interesting finds.
Remember those creepy beach dolls that caught the attention of Last Week Tonight host John Oliver? Or the fake leg that washed ashore in October?
This time, Jace Tunnell, Executive Director of Mission-Aransas Reserve, shows us a boat from Cuba that was found on North Padre Island on April 26.
"I was doing my survey today on North Padre Island and walked up on this," Tunnell said in the video. "Does this look like a homemade boat or what?"
Materials for cooking, water, clothing, and shoes were found in the boat. Tunnell went through the items to see if he could find anything to give him a hint as to where the boat came from. That's when he found a bag with "ALIMPORT Cuba" written on it, which is the Cuban government's procurement agency for U.S. agricultural products.
"Can you imagine, from Cuba? That's a long way to come! It's a good thing they still have water in here, maybe they made it."
The boat was found just south of Bob Hall Pier, Tunnell said in the video.
Nobody was found in or near the boat. Tunnell said he was later told that the migrants from the boat were actually picked up by a tanker off the coast of Louisiana on April 1, 26 days before the boat was found.
"There were 12 people on there, they were very hungry and they only had about a half gallon of water left," Tunnell said. "But luckily everybody was safe, everybody survived, they ended up giving them to the Coast Guard."
He said county officials picked up the boat. It was crushed and taken to a landfill.
"You never know what you're going to find on the beach," Tunnell said.
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