The sea, old men, Hemingway (and Lanzarote)

Lanzarote

Most people know Lanzarote these days as a popular British holiday destination in the Canary Islands, but the island has survived its share of tragedy and suffering. In the 1700s volcanic eruptions shook Lanzarote and destroyed much of the agricultural land, the island’s principal activity.

The situation was disastrous for many local inhabitants, who were forced to emigrate, mainly to Cuba and the Americas. In the following years to come, there would be periods of drought, food shortages, epidemics and more volcanic activity. This produced a wave of emigration that lasted until the 1950s.

It is possible that Carlos Gutierrez was one of these emigrants. Not much is known about Carlos – his birthplace is debated, but no matter if he was born in Lanzarote or Cuba, Carlos would have grown up around the sea, and been familiar with both Atlantic waters and the Gulf Stream winds. As an older adult, in the 1930s, he became a fishing mate of Ernest Hemingway the writer, who was also living in Cuba at the time.

Hemingway and Pilar

Hemingway, a keen angler, had acquired a 12-metre boat in 1934 and named it Pilar, a name he used for his second wife, Pauline. The boat was used for sailing and fishing trips around the Caribbean. Carlos Gutierrez became the first captain onboard Pilar for Hemingway, whose passion for the sea would have a strong influence on his writing.

During fishing expeditions prior to the purchase of Pilar, Carlos had taught him techniques for catching marlin, a species related to swordfish, but with a crest and a long spear-like jaw. Marlin fish, large bony fish, weighing up to 450 kg, were fished by Hemingway in Florida, the Bahamas and Cuba, but they were also well-known in the Atlantic waters surrounding Lanzarote. The photo below shows Ernest, Pauline and sons, along with some unfortunate marlin, in Birmini, on the west of Bermuda, where the family lived from 1935 to 1937.

There is no doubt that Hemingway was an excellent angler and that much of his time was dedicated to fishing. But according to Jeffrey Meyers who wrote a biography of Hemingway in 1985, his boat was also a

”kind of a floating whorehouse and rum factory as well as a fishing boat.”

So it would seem Hemingway got his kicks in other ways on Pilar and this would eventually lead to Carlos’s downfall. Sources say Carlos Gutierrez was sacked by Jane Mason, Hemingway’s mistress at the time, when she discovered that Ernest was spending time onboard with Martha Gelhorn, who would eventually become his third wife. He was still married to Pauline at the time.

So Martha replaced Pauline and Jane, and likewise, Carlos Gutierrez’s role was filled by Gregorio Fuentes.

Gregorio Fuentes

We know for sure that Gregorio Fuentes was born in El Charco de Ginés, in Arrecife, the capital city of Lanzarote, in the 1890s. He is said to have emigrated to Cuba at the age of 6 with his father, who sadly did not survive the voyage. It was all too familiar for passengers to die during the journey due to either lack of sanitary conditions, tropical diseases or a combination of both. On arrival, young Gregorio was taken care of by other passengers from the Canary Islands who were also emigrating to Cuba. Another source says he migrated to Cuba permanently at the age of 22, after working in the Canaries, Valencia and Seville on the docks.

There are also conflicting stories on how Gregorio met Hemingway, but one thing is clear – they were bonded by their love of the sea. Legend says that Gregorio, who at the time captained another boat, saved Hemingway and his crew from a tropical storm in 1928. It is indisputable that Gregorio and Ernest established a lasting friendship after Ernest established himself in Cuba in 1939, and Gregorio worked on the deck of Pilar, eventually replacing Carlos as captain. They would go out on fishing expeditions that lasted 3 or 4 days and any further details of what happened onboard were never divulged by Gregorio.

Andy García, the Cuban American actor, in collaboration with Hilary Hemingway, Ernest’s niece, has written a screenplay of this friendship although the film appears to have remained in a developmental stage for several years.

The Old Man and the Sea

By 1961, Hemingway had married his fourth wife Mary, won the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and moved back to the States, where he committed suicide after bouts of physical illness and depression. He left his boat Pilar, home of so many fishing expeditions, to his staunch ally Gregorio, who in turn left it to the Cuban people. The boat is still on display in Havana.

The Old Man and the Sea was Hemingway’s last major work of fiction, written in Cuba in 1951. It recounts the story of Santiago, an ageing Cuban fisherman who has an epic battle on his fishing boat to catch a giant marlin, with themes of perseverance and suffering.

Gregorio is often cited as being the model for Hemingway’s protagonist, Santiago, although it also seems highly probable that Carlos Gutierrez, Pilar’s first captain and master fisherman, would have provided Hemingway with both inspiration and expert knowledge of how to catch marlin. Hemingway himself claimed that Santiago was not based on anybody. Gregorio, in later life, was known to charge tourists in Cuba for tales of his friendship with Hemingway, and these memories often emphasised his links to the hero of The Old Man and The Sea.

What cannot be denied is that the world-renowned Ernest Hemingway and this humble fisherman born in Lanzarote forged a deep friendship of over 20 years, bound by their passion for fishing and the sea.

Gregorio Fuentes lived in his adopted hometown of Cojimar in Cuba until the grand old age of 104. He died in 2002, having never read The Old Man and the Sea for himself, as he was never taught how to read.