Heavy Water

When people hear the words Guantánamo Bay these days, a lot of images come to mind. Wakeboarding is not usually one of them

As the scorching Caribbean sun melts into the Wednesday skyline, Billy Marsh grabs a tattered surfboard from the bed of a pickup truck and sprints toward the water. "Let's go, Mikey!" he hollers to his little brother, who's still seated on the beach. "Now or never!"

Moments later, 19-year-old Mikey has paddled out to meet 22-year-old Billy in the lineup. A few feet from them, four pro wakeboarders watch Mikey struggle through the waves. "This is tough," Mikey says. Although he's also a pro wakeboarder, this is his first time surfing. Billy, who rode professionally before joining the Coast Guard in 2004, learned to surf only last month. "Pretty amazing place, huh?" he asks. Mikey nods slowly, in unsure agreement. As they sit on their boards, neither can quite believe they are here together. It's been four months since the brothers have seen each other—the longest these Massachusetts natives have ever been apart. It's a scene worthy of Monet, save for the menacing structure on a cliff looming about 200 yards away. With daylight fading, the Marshes can barely see the outline of Camp 6, the U.S. military's high-security prison. "Pretty intense, huh?" Billy asks. Mikey nods, again slowly. After all, he's learning to surf in Guantánamo Bay.

That five pro wakeboarders find themselves on a small spit of southeastern Cuba occupied by the U.S. might be even stranger than the place itself. These days, the naval base known as Guantánamo Bay is synonymous with the prison it houses. Since 2001, Gitmo has held hundreds of "enemy combatants" who the Bush administration says are linked to various acts of terrorism around the globe. To some Americans, the base is a foxhole in the war on terror; to others, it represents all that's wrong with the current government.

Whatever the truth, or truths, this four-day visit has nothing and everything to do with the prison and the troops stationed here. The five riders (Mikey Marsh, Keith Lyman, Jack Blodgett, Zane Schwenk and two-time world champion Andrew Adkison) are roughly the same age as many of the troops—there are 7,000 people at Guantánamo Bay, 700 of them active military—but a different path has brought them to Cuba. The wakeboarders are here because Billy Marsh is stationed at Gitmo. It was his idea to invite them to Guantánamo as a morale boost for his fellow troops. And so they've come, to perform exhibitions, give lessons to wannabe wakeboarders and, well, see for themselves. This being a military
production, each second of every day is scheduled, the riders' watches set 10 minutes ahead to account for their "casual" sense of time.

Dun dun da da da … The tinny sound of reveille announces the time on Thursday: 0800 hours. The wakeboarders have been out for nearly two hours, having woken up at 0600 hours to catch the water at its calmest. Their sunrise session is taking place near a mangrove-laden section of the Bay called The Maze. At 0900 hours, a call comes across the boat's radio, ordering them to evacuate the area within 60 minutes. The Maze will become a "hot spot," which means it will come under heavy artillery fire. Such is life when USO meets X.

Back on land, the riders pile into a white van driven by their guide, Jeron Chapman, a civilian employee of the base's MWR division. (That's Morale, Welfare and Recreation, for the uninitiated.) The first stop on today's base tour is the Northeast Gate, the only dryland passageway between Gitmo and Castro's Cuba. "I should never have worn yellow," Adkison says after he climbs out of the van, surrounded by wakeboarding friends in black and troops in desert camouflage. "I'm the most visible target." At 1200 hours, they arrive at the base radio station to appear on a show hosted by Ted Cartwright, a.k.a. DJ Glasspack, a 21-year-old Navy officer who drives a souped-up red Subaru Impreza around the base (speed limit: 25 mph). He tells the riders at least 30 times that he is having "the best day ever!"

For lunch, Jeron drives past Gitmo's McDonald's, Pizza Hut and Subway, stopping instead at the prison galley, a lunchroom for troops inside the prison compound. Each wakeboarder is instructed to sit at a different table and start conversations with the men and women in uniform. And so they do, learning that most of the troops like serving here, if only for the fishing, surfing and diving. And those charges of torture? If there's unrest at Gitmo, these disciplined military folk aren't telling a bunch of athletes.

After lunch, the group stops at the NEX, or Navy Exchange, to buy groceries and souvenirs. "Check it out," says Lyman, holding up a black T-shirt that reads, "IT DON'T GITMO BETTER THAN THIS." He discards the shirt for a refrigerator magnet with jumping dolphins and the words "Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Wish You Were Here" on it. "Mom will love this," says Lyman, who got a mixed reaction when he told friends and family back home that he was going on a wakeboarding trip to Guantánamo. "Some thought it was great that we were doing something for the troops. Others were surprised because of all the news about the prison."

In fact, the day before the riders flew out of the Jacksonville naval base, a story on the forcefeedings of hunger-striking prisoners at Camp 6 appeared on Page 1 of The New York Times. With the trial of Australian-born Taliban supporter David Hicks underway and media scrutiny high, the trip was almost called off, and postponed twice. "I can't believe it happened," Billy says at one point. "I can't believe I got to show Mikey my world."

He refers to a different Gitmo than the one in many people's minds. When he was deployed to the base Dec. 1, Billy was as skeptical as anyone. "I thought we'd be living in tents and that the military was mean and bad to the people held here." Once he arrived, he began IM'ing Mikey, telling him the place wasn't like the Gitmo he'd read about. He said it was beautiful, tropical. Said he liked the men and women stationed there. And he said the Bay was a great place to wakeboard, and that he'd like to show Mikey himself. So, in February, Billy sent more than 150 e-mails up his chain of command until he got approval for the exhibition.

By the time their final activities swing around, at the base marina on Friday, the wakeboarders are celebrities. "My eyes lit up when I heard they were coming," says Eran Haber, a Navy sonar tech from Ocala, Fla. Haber is asked what he'd be doing were he not on a boat taking wakeboarding lessons.

"Preparing my uniform for duty tomorrow, ma'am."

What duty, exactly?

"Taking care of detainees, ma'am"

How does today's activity compare to that?

"Much more fun, ma'am."

An hour before the show, the pier is crowded with spectators. Captain Mark Leary, commanding officer at Gitmo, arrives in short sleeves and khaki shorts, carrying a lawn chair. He unfolds it at the dock's edge next to Billy Marsh, who's emceeing the show. Leary's arrival is met with whispers and a request from Billy to "turn off the gangsta rap." For 90 minutes, Leary watches the wakeboarders twist and flip behind a specially outfitted $115,000 boat shipped to Gitmo for the week. At the end of the show, the riders present Leary with a board signed by all.

"We're leaving tomorrow," Schwenk says to the commander. "Now your waters can return to being peaceful." "Son," Leary replies, "these waters are never peaceful."

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