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Many boat owners set off for Cuba alone, while others worked in groups. One early squadron consisted of 50 boats belonging to the Committee of 75, a Cuban exile group based in Miami that helped negotiate the release of 3,600 political prisoners from Havana in 1978. But some skippers made the journey with profit in mind. The going price for a 35-ft.-long charter boat topped $5,000, while other captains were charging by the head, up to $1,000 for each Cuban brought back.
At first the skippers discovered the harbor at Mariel much better organized than the one they had left behind in Key West. Far offshore, launches were met by Cuban gunboats and escorted into the harbor. Once in port, crewmen handed Cuban soldiers lists of relatives and friends they wanted to bring back to the U.S. Havana police were then dispatched to homes to inform the would-be refugees that boats were awaiting them; they were given one hour to report to bus stops for the journey to Mariel. The embassy refugees, who had already been trucked in from Havana, were encamped in tents and fed rice and canned meat while waiting for their boat assignments. For every non-embassy refugee, each boat was required to accept four embassy refugees hand-picked by Castro's men.
By week's end Mariel was choked with vessels, some of which had been held up for three days waiting to pick up refugees. "Three hundred boats bobbed in the small harbor, and another 200 were anchored outside its mouth," reported TIME Correspondent Richard Woodbury, aboard a 36-ft. launch called Endeavor. "Uniformed soldiers with automatic rifles watched coolly from the banks as government launches skittered from boat to boat, handing out customs forms and answering questions. In 1962 the Soviet missiles that eventually touched off the Cuban missile crisis between the U.S. and the Soviet Union were delivered through this port, but now the harbor resembled a circus of the seas. The curious watched in wonder from apartments as an overeager skipper ran his 16-footer into one of Castro's launches, snapping its flagpole. At nightfall the flotilla twinkled like a floating city, with boats lashed together and crews exchanging festive visits. Castro's searchlights swept the surrounding waters, guarding against Cubans who might try to swim out to the boats."
At Key West, refugees were greeted by customs and immigration officers, who examined their meager belongings and handed out forms to be filled out. Many of the embassy refugees carried the salvoconducto (safe conduct) passes that had enabled them to leave the packed compound and wait at home; others proudly displayed forms attesting that the bearer had no police record. None, of course, carried any documents that legally entitled them to enter the U.S. Many were caught up in the joyful embrace of relatives who had come to meet the boats; others, exhausted and seasick, simply sprawled on the dock for some rest. All seemed happy to be finally on American soil. "It is a dream so pretty," said Hugo Landa, 27, a Havana interpreter, who said that he had survived seven days at the Peruvian embassy without food. "It is the thing we have dreamed about and prayed for but never thought would happen."