Sipping on a breakfast of Barton light rum, Eric Hinzey sits on a wall near Bimini's beach, squints his one good eye, and gestures across the 50 miles of ocean separating the Bahamian islandfrom Miami.

''People come from Haiti and Cuba and other places, and we try to get them over there,'' said Hinzey, 49, shrugging. ``You're not doing anything wrong. You're just trying to save people's lives.''

Hinzey is one of Bimini's many ''former'' smugglers, those who joined its long history of capitalizing on its tantalizing proximity to the United States.

Despite a sign in the marina that calls Bimini the ''Gateway to the Bahamas,'' for generations of migrants from the Caribbean, Latin America and even as far away as China, this sandy spit of land has been the illegal portal to the United States by way of South Florida.

Since the 1920s, when rum runners carrying contraband into Florida added Chinese workers to their load, a steady tide of people have viewed Bimini as the last stop on their pilgrimage toward a new life in the United States.

For many local ''Biminites,'' that nearness has meant a cottage industry built around the flow of U.S.-bound illegal travelers, one that runs parallel to the business of catering to a reverse flow of vacationing tourists.

With the U.S. economic downturn, and the job losses that accompany it, both of those industries are suffering -- spawning the sudden growth in ''former'' smugglers. But even as the ferrying of undocumented immigrants has slowed, Biminites say that many continue to risk their lives in dangerous voyages across the sea.

''The large groups are not coming as much as they used to, but . . . people who want to make money nefariously still view this as an opportunity,'' Jeff Dubel, public affairs officer for the U.S. Embassy in Nassau, said of smuggling out of the Bahamas. ``The smuggling leads to many tragedies in the sea.''

WAITING TO GO

Behind the tourist facade, with the well-known ''End of the World'' bar, the T-shirts that say ''Relax -- God is in Charge,'' and the houses with signs that merrily proclaim ''Cirrhosis by the Sea,'' groups of immigrants periodically huddle in the safe houses that dot North Bimini's gently sloping hills, waiting for word that their boat is ready and the weather is cooperating for this last leg of their journey.

Although that ocean voyage can take as little as an hour in a fast boat, it has proved deceptively treacherous to hundreds of would-be migrants who have died in smuggling accidents.

There are at least 50 confirmed smuggling-related deaths each year in the waters off the Bahamas, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, but U.S. Coast Guard officials estimate that the real number is more than double that. Just last week, two Dominican migrants were found alive after nearly a month at sea while 49 others were believed dead, the Dominican Navy reported Friday.

In November and September alone, more than 100 people are believed to have died in that area, said Capt. Peter Brown.

Those cases ''are tragic, but sadly not unusual,'' said Brown, chief of law enforcement for the U.S. Coast Guard Seventh District, which includes Florida and the Bahamas. ``We have cases like that every year.''

Smugglers and their human cargo brave the waters in vessels ranging from cigarette boats to three-seat dinghies that are more difficult for Coast Guard radars to detect, smugglers say.

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