History of sorts was created when after 40 years, the first US Cruise, the 704-passenger laden Adonia crossed the Florida Straits in a 17-hour journey from Miami to Havana on Monday the 2nd of May 2016.
Though travel restrictions were virtually eliminated under the Carter Presidency, they were back once he demitted office. Only after President Barack Obama and Raul Castro declared detente on December 17th 2014, they were restored.
Before the 1959 Cuban Revolution, cruise ships regularly travelled from US to Cuba. The Straits were blocked by the US during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 that once brought the World to the brink of a nuclear war. The Crisis was the flash point of Cold War conditions between the US and the then Soviet Union. Soviet Union had deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba, which was Soviet aligned then, and for 13 days there was a political and military stand-off between US and Soviet Union, as the missiles were just 90 miles from US.
The situation was defused when Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove them and US in turn agreed not to invade Cuba. President Kennedy also agreed to remove secret US missiles from Turkey, which Soviet Union perceived as a threat to itself. The world was saved from a nuclear catastrophe and this crisis is captured in a movie “Thirteen Days”, starring Kevin Costner. The movie’s tagline is “You’ll never believe how close we came.”
Adonia, the ship, brings in its journey an olive branch and the promise of tourism. People to people interaction by way of tourism is definitely going to help restore peaceful conditions in the Straits.
I would like to give a peace tagline today on this peace move: “You’ll never believe how close we can be!”