DECEMBER TWO: BOW TO FREEDOM

By Rodrigo Tamayo Motas

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The sea is raging between the strong waves lift the boat while holding the course for the mainland, two day delay in its arrival but nothing stops him in his journey toward the dawn.
Eighty-two men stare at the horizon in search of the promised island, the weather hit but not give up before the dizziness and vomiting.
Seven days earlier, leaving behind the port of Tuxpan, Veracruz, in Mexico, the expedition members sang the national anthem and the start of July 26, and his voice broke the night with shouts of Viva la Revolution! and Down with Tyranny!

There are eighty-two young Fidel in front and a single beat of heart and hope to spread: We will be free or martyrs and the belief that if you came and if they came out triumphant.

 The boat speed is constant. And frequent high waves washed the foredeck. The announcement of the nearest landing, desperation and little sleep. A strong wave shakes the boat and the watch falls into the sea. "! Man overboard," shouted several. Fidel ordered to stop for rescue.

With a rope and with some effort, manage to rescue him. The excitement is shared "Viva Cuba libre!" Doctors and Faustino Pérez Ernesto Guevara met his first assist of the season.
When he saw the lights of Cabo Cruz lighthouse growing expectation. Fidel reports that soon landed on a nearby point of Niquero and showcases the military structure that would take.
At one end of mangrove named The Cayuelos, two kilometers from the beach Color-which is where they should have gone down, "the Granma aground forward forcing the landing. It was 6:50 pm on December 2, 1956.

54 years after that heroic epic, the saga of Granma sailing the stormy seas of this world convulsed with his victorious bow to the XVII World Festival of Youth and Students pay tribute event, from 13 to 21 December in South Africa, Nelson Mandela and the leader of those 82 expeditionary: our Fidel Castro Ruz.