"Gregorio Fuentes has been mate on Pilar since 1938. He is fifty years old this summer and went to sea in sail from Lanzarote, one of the smaller Canary islands, when he was four. I met him at Dry Tortugas when he was captain of a fishing smack and we were both stormbound there in a very northeast gale in 1928. We went on board his smack to get some onions. We wanted to buy the onions, but he gave them to us, and some rum as well, and I remember thinking he had the cleanest ship that I had ever seen. Now after ten years I know that he would rather keep a ship clean, and paint and garnish, than he would fish. But I know, too that he would rather fish than eat or sleep." ---The Great Blue River, Holiday magazine, July 1949, by Ernest Hemingway
No comments:
Post a Comment