A rented boat that disappeared Monday on Biscayne Bay, with five people aboard, reappeared dramatically Thursday morning: upside down on the Atlantic Ocean, with 13 survivors clinging to the hull, a dead man floating alongside and a drowned woman caught underneath.

The crews of a Coast Guard cutter, three patrol boats and two helicopters rescued and treated the survivors. They searched at the same time for a missing victim, No. 16, three miles east of the Miami-Dade-Broward county line. Thursday night, they still hadn't found that person.

The victims appeared at first to be a crowd of Cuban refugees, too many for a 24-foot outboard motorboat, crossing the Gulf Stream from Bimini to Miami on rough seas.

Not quite so. As many as five of them may have been local people who rented the boat in Miami and did not return it. A man named Abel Morejon, who gave a Hialeah address, rented the boat for a day on the bay. He apparently was among the survivors of the capsizing and was suspected of alien smuggling, though not charged with a crime.

``Our operations people are pretty sure they have the guy,'' said Jeff Hall, a Coast Guard spokesman.

Late at night, Abel Morejon's brothers -- Nicandro, 38, of Homestead and Jorge, 37, of Hialeah -- were arrested.

``They are charged with alien smuggling, resulting in death,'' said Wilfredo Fernandez of the U.S. attorney's office.

He said the maximum penalty for alien smuggling ordinarily is three years in prison, but if someone dies the offense is treated as felony murder, and the death penalty can be imposed.

``Abel Morejon has not been charged yet,'' Fernandez said.

Survivors in custody

INS agents took custody of all the survivors; those not kept in hospitals were to be held at the Krome detention camp.

Two women who were treated at Parkway Regional Medical Center also gave a Hialeah address, a hospital spokesman said. Both were reported in good condition. Their ages are 37 and 51; their names were not released.

Another woman and three men, suffering from exposure to the cold ocean water, were taken on Coast Guard helicopters to Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach. They were reported in good condition.

The drowned woman caught under the boat floated to the surface when Coast Guard rescuers made an unsuccessful attempt to pull the overturned boat upright. Evidently dead, she was hoisted aboard the cutter Baranof and placed under a canvas shroud on deck. She lay there for a few hours, between two survivors.

``At 12:34, they discovered some vital signs,'' said Hall, the Coast Guard spokesman.

The woman was flown by helicopter to Mount Sinai, but could not be revived. She was pronounced dead at 2:04 p.m.

One of the survivors there told Dr. Richard Menendez, an emergency physician, that the refugees left Cuba on Tuesday and made a stop in the Bahamas.

Seven at sea

INS agents took charge of all the victims, including seven who remained at sea all day aboard the Coast Guard cutter Baranof.

``We are going to be bringing in the seven people as potential witnesses in our investigation of this as a smuggling case,'' INS spokesman Lemar Wooley said.

In the afternoon, seven anxious people waited outside the Mount Sinai emergency room for information about friends or relatives they thought were on the boat.

One of those waiting was Santiago Reyes. He got a cellular phone call at 7 a.m. from Yusimi Caballero, 20, a friend on the boat, who told him it was in danger.

``She called and said they were three miles from the beach, close to the buildings,'' Reyes said. ``I didn't have time to ask her anything.''

Alive and stable

Later at home, Reyes received a call: Caballero was alive and in stable condition.

``I asked God to help her, and He answered my prayers,'' Reyes said. ``I am so happy I am losing my head.''

Juana Bacallao, waiting at Mount Sinai, said her husband, Jorge Morejon, and his brother Osvaldo, 33, were on the boat, too.

``I was on a trip and I just got back and heard the news on television -- three dead,'' she said. ``My husband might be one. I know he went out fishing.''

She left the hospital about 3 p.m. Charges against her husband and another Morejon brother were not announced until 9 p.m.

Al Fogelsanger, owner of the Club Nautico boat-rental franchise at Dinner Key, guessed Abel Morejon, who rented the boat Monday, is about 30 years old, a thin fellow. There were two other men and two women with him that day, and nobody brought fishing tackle, Fogelsanger said.

The 24-foot Hi-Seas is an open fishing boat with center console and 200-horsepower outboard engine. It has a 145-gallon gas tank. The rental price is $400 a day. Morejon paid a $500 cash deposit, Fogelsanger said. He had rented boats to the same man twice before, as recently as a month ago.

Rental rules

Before casting off, Morejon was reacquainted with the rental rules: His distance limit in the ocean was two miles offshore. The boat had to be brought back by 5 p.m. the same day. The certified capacity was nine people; it carried that many life vests.

``He rented it at noon on Monday,'' Fogelsanger said. ``He said they were going to Elliott Key. We don't rent to every Tom, Dick and Harry who comes in off the street. We check you out, get on the boat with you and have you detail your boating experience. This particular person said he had 16 years' boating experience.''

Fogelsanger didn't know if that was true, but he was satisfied that Morejon knew how to run a boat. It didn't faze him when, within half an hour, the renter phoned to report that he had run the boat aground on a sand flat near the south end of Key Biscayne -- a common mistake. Fogelsanger sent an employee out to pull the Hi-Seas into deeper water.

On his way again

Then Morejon was on his way again, southbound in the bay toward Elliott Key.

The boat didn't come back by 5 p.m. At 7, a Club Nautico employee notified the Coast Guard that it was overdue. The next day, Fogelsanger made a stolen boat complaint to the Miami Police.

``On Tuesday afternoon a fishing mate in Bimini reported to us that he saw the boat overnight Monday in Bimini,'' Fogelsanger said. ``So we notified the Coast Guard of what we'd learned.''

It is part of the Coast Guard's routine, when a boat is missing, to broadcast a description to marine patrols and call all local marinas. If no one has seen the boat, the next round of calls goes to marinas on Bimini.

Jeff Hall, the Coast Guard spokesman, said an investigator scored there:

``A dockmaster in Bimini said he saw the boat and the guy getting gas.''

The Hi-Seas, with 16 people aboard, left Bimini sometime Wednesday night. After a couple of days of windy weather, the rough seas were settling down gradually but still choppy.

Thursday morning, Hall said, someone on the boat used a cellular phone to call someone ashore. That person notified the Coast Guard at 7 a.m. that the boat was taking on water, about 3 1/2 miles off northern Miami Beach.

Herald staff writer Rick Jervis contributed to this report.