Knight Ridder Newspapers

MIAMI – The mastermind of the “truckonauts” – whose gutsy floats to freedom from Cuba to the United States aboard 1950s vintage vehicles failed – has finally made it to Miami.

But again, he did it the hard way.

The first two attempts were onboard a retrofitted 1951 Chevy truck, then a 1959 Buick.

Although Grass’ efforts weren’t successful, they generated international headlines when photographs of the migrants on their amphibious contraption surfaced. Grass’ attorneys have said he had been approached by producers interested in telling his life story.

Last week, their third and successful attempt was by land, but the ingenious and persistent Luis Grass and his family said they still hit some rough terrain.

“Trying to cross the Florida Straits on my floating cars was easier, I can tell you that,” Grass, 36, said Monday at his attorney’s office, where he and his wife, Isora, described the final leg of their long road to the United States. “We suffered a million problems.”

The couple, carrying their 5-year-old son angel Luis, said they spent 24 days making their way on foot and via public transportation across the borders of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico.

Sometimes they waded through jungles where they encountered snakes, wild monkeys and every “insect possible” – all to avoid detection because they did not have legal papers.

“This last trip was the scariest,” Isora said.

Money was short and some nights they slept out in the open. Milk for their boy was hard to come by during the journey, which the trio started from Feb. 16 in San Jose, Costa Rica and ended March 12 by crossing into the United States at Matamoros, Mexico.

“It was hellish; we suffered a lot,” Isora said. “But we’re finally here.”

Once they reached Texas, they were held by immigration officials for several days, they asked for asylum and were eventually finally paroled.

They traveled to Miami on a van arriving late Saturday or early Sunday at the home of Isora’s brother, Raul Garcia.

The family is now seeking political asylum in the United States under the Cuban Adjustment Act, said their attorney Wilfredo Allen.

“A peace has finally come over me now that my wife and son are here in the United States,” said Grass, as he held his son, sporting Mickey Mouse overalls.

“What you are hearing here is a story of the pursuit of freedom becoming a reality,” said Ramon Saul Sanchez, head of the Democracy Movement, which championed the family’s quest to reach America.

Grass, a diminutive man with a spunky attitude, thanked his wife for going along on his “crazy schemes,” admitting he endangered their lives three times.

Grass spoke affectionately and with pride of his “51 Chevy tuck, the first vehicle he converted into a floating truck and loaded up with nine other friends and his family and headed for Miami.

He considers it his greatest creation and hope he can build another as a symbol of a quest for freedom.

Grass said even the Cuban state police which watched him sail out February 2003, shaking their heads in disbelief at the sight of a truck hitting the water running.

He later learned the officers’ superiors first ignored their frantic late night call to report that “a truck was headed to Miami.” They were chastised and told to stop drinking at night while on patrol, he said.

In the middle of the Florida Straits, the U.S. Coast Guard spotted the floating truck, They took everyone off.

The U.S. government sank the vintage treasure, calling it a navigational hazard.

“I swallowed my tears,” Grass said. “That truck had been everything to me.”

Grass said he was only the truck’s second owners. He had bought it several years ago from a neighbor. He would not say how much he paid for it.

“He had bought it brand new in 1951,” Grass said.

Sent back to Cuba after the first attempt, Grass said his life became difficult, as the government began considering him a troublemaker.

Enter a broken down “59 Buick he owned. It was easy to retrofit it to float; he already had experience. His family and a group set out in February 2004.

That trip, too, ended when the U.S. Coast Guard found them. But this time a Miami federal judge stepped in, ordering the Grass family to be sent to U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo, where the family waited for asylum.

On December 2004, the U.S. government and Costa Rica struck a deal, allowing the Grass family and a dozen others to go live in Costa Rica.

The family was given $450 a month to live, but their rent alone was $250, Isora said.

“Life was hard,” she said.

Grass said his goal had always been to make it to the United States. He began planning their trip to the U.S. – over land.

He now plans to find work – and buy a car.

“There are so many kinds here,” he said.