By ELAINE DE VALLE and LYCIA NAFF
Herald Staff Writers

There was deep pain and a minor protest by Cuban exiles Sunday, a day after South Florida learned that a female Cuban refugee drowned when a boat carrying 12 Cuban migrants collided with a Coast Guard cutter off Broward County, throwing the Cubans into the dark waves.

A few dozen people cruised in their cars through Little Havana, waving Cuban flags, while others gathered at a bayside church in Coconut Grove to pray for the refugees rescued off Broward.

``They are only trying to save themselves from a communist system,'' said Pedro Gomez, a rafter who arrived in 1995 and is an adult-education teacher at Southwest Miami High in Westchester. He was one of about 100 people who showed up at Coconut Grove's La Ermita de la Caridad Catholic Church, the Cuban spiritual center.

The name of the woman who drowned in Friday's incident -- and whose body was found 45 miles to the north almost 12 hours later -- had not been released late Sunday because authorities were not sure if her family knew she had died.

``We have to make positive confirmation of her identification and then work with the State Department to contact the Cuban government and get their assistance contacting her immediate family,'' said Russ Bergeron, a spokesman with the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Washington, D.C.

A government source said her body was taken to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo with the 11 survivors plucked out of the sea Friday because one of the others is her husband.

Bergeron also said it was too soon to know if the Cubans would be sent back to Cuba, allowed to come to the United States or resettled in a third country.

``All of the individuals will have to first be interviewed, and each case will have to be evaluated separately,'' he said.

While some exiles mourned the death of the young woman, others welcomed 22 other Cubans who showed up Saturday aboard a small boat at Hollywood Beach -- overshooting their preferred destination.

The 13 men and nine women said they had left about a week ago and aimed straight for Miami's shore, but they blew off course and landed behind beachfront motels near the 2100 block of South Surf Road.

They were greeted by several Cuban-American families from Miami-Dade County who were spending the weekend in the area.

``We saw them heading right to the shore, and we shouted, `Welcome to America,' '' said Frank Azoy, 39, of Homestead. ``We said, `Come, come, but Miami is that way,' and they all looked down the coast and looked back at us very sad. We gave them food and drinks and showed them to the bathroom.''

Meanwhile, police in Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale guarded the Coast Guard stations in their respective cities, braced for demonstrations after the Broward incident. They were expecting the same kind of reaction when exiles poured onto the streets and blocked traffic June 29.

That's when a live TV broadcast showed Coast Guard officers blasting six rafters with a water hose and pepper spray just feet away from Surfside beach.

But unlike the June 29 episode, the collision off Broward happened late Friday night, away from Miami-Dade -- where the majority of Cuban Americans live -- and away from TV cameras.

``It happened late at night on the weekend, and there are no live radio programs to tell people about it,'' Cuban American National Foundation spokeswoman Ninoska Perez said Sunday. ``I was at a wedding last night, and half the people there still didn't know about it.''

Also, the consensus in the Cuban community seemed to be that Friday's incident -- in which the Cubans crossed in front of the Coast Guard cutter to avoid getting caught and sent back to the communist island -- was an accident.

Calling it ``a lamentable tragedy,'' Norman del Valle, a leader with the exile Democracy Movement, asked fellow Cubans to remain calm and not react as they did June 29 when protesters blocked traffic on the MacArthur Causeway and the Palmetto Expressway.

``Remember that the only one at fault here is Fidel Castro, because if there was no repression in Cuba, these Cubans would never risk their lives at sea,'' del Valle said.

He helped organize a flotilla Saturday to remember other Cubans lost at sea, including the 41 who drowned five years ago Tuesday when Cuban patrol boats rammed and sank the 13 de Marzo tugboat as it attempted to head for the United States.

Democracy founder and leader Ramon Saul Sanchez also deplored the loss of the young woman's life, blaming the Castro regime for what happened.

``More than two million exiles have left Cuba in the last 40 years, which means something very bad is happening there that should be changed,'' he said. ``And that something is called Fidel Castro.''

Friday's deadly collision off Hillsboro Inlet in North Broward, however, bolsters the argument by some that the U.S. repatriation policy -- adopted by the Clinton administration in 1994 -- needs to be modified.

Right now, Cubans intercepted at sea are sent back to Cuba, while those who make it to land are allowed to stay. Some call it the ``wet foot/dry foot'' doctrine.

Many exile activists believe the policy should be revised to allow Cubans caught in U.S. territorial waters to stay as well.

The 11 Cubans plucked out of the sea Friday were taken to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo, where it will be determined if they will be allowed to resettle in a third country or sent back to Cuba, a State Department official said Saturday.

But many Cubans in Miami said Sunday that the threat of repatriation will not deter fellow Cubans on the island from attempting the dangerous voyage to the land of freedom and opportunity.

``Whoever doesn't live in Cuba doesn't understand the situation,'' said Nestor Mendez, a Miami pharmacist who was among the 100 people or so praying at the regular 5 p.m. service at La Ermita de la Caridad.