After a lull following Fidel Castro?s illness last year, Cubans once again are taking to homemade boats or powerful speedboats manned by smugglers on a trip to the United States that often includes a detour through Mexico.

Since May, the US Coast Guard has been intercepting more boat people in precarious craft crossing the Straits of Florida in the calm summer waters. The US Border Patrol also has been processing rising numbers turning up at the US frontier with Mexico.

Cubans coming across the 145 km gap with Florida try to make it in anything that floats and has a motor ? from a hijacked fishing boat to an array of inner tubes tied together with a weed whacker for propeller. For those with a relative in Miami able to pay the $8,000 fare, there are illegal ?cigarette? boats that jet in and out of the Cuban coast in broad daylight to pick up emigres.

These racing machines cost upward of $150,000 and are built for eight to 10 passengers but often speed away jam-packed with 30 to 40 people at their own peril. So far this fiscal year, 2,819 Cubans have made it ashore in Florida, compared with 3,076 in all of last year, said US Customs and Border Protection spokesman Zachary Mann.

The number of Cubans intercepted in the Florida Straits are still below ? but likely to exceed ? last year?s 2,810, according to the US Coast Guard. That was the highest number since the 1994 exodus when the Coast Guard picked up more than 35,000 people floating off Cuba in all kinds of rafts when Castro opened the doors briefly.

To avoid another rafting crisis, the United States started sending back Cubans intercepted at sea. Under the co-called ?wet-foot, dry-foot? policy, only those who make it ashore get to stay in the United States. Coast Guard interception figures showed fewer Cubans were leaving last year after an ailing Castro handed over power to his brother Raul, due either to increased coastal security at the time or potential emigres waiting to see if things would change in Cuba after four decades of communist rule. They didn?t.