Adios Gregorio Fuentes: Captain of Hemingway's Cuba
"The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were in his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the chords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert."
Ernest Hemingway's words describing the character Santiago, immortalized in his 1952 classic, The Old Man and the Sea are as timeless as a key inspiration to the character, Gregorio Fuentes, who died last week at age 104 in the Cuban fishing village of Cojímar, the salty backdrop for the story just east of Havana.
"All of my memories with Hemingway are good ones," Fuentes explained in a lucid interview before his death. "They were very happy times for us both. Full of adventure. We were young and full of life."
Fuentes, born in 1897 on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, immigrated to Cuba at age six and was raised among fishermen in Cojímar, where he spent his entire life. In 1928, Fuentes worked as a fish merchant, trading between Havana and Florida. One day Hemingway was out searching for onions and rum with friends when a tropical storm swept in, forcing him to take refuge with his rented rum-runner's boat, the Anita, at Dry Tortugas off the Florida Keys. Here he met Fuentes for the first time. In 1938, recalling how spotless Fuentes kept his vessel, for $250 a month, Hemingway hired "Grigorine" as captain and cook of his sport fishing boat, the Pilar, and a lifelong, endearing friendship ensued.
"Women and whiskey, yes. Rum never. Hemingway drank only whiskey," said Fuentes, explaining how he spent 22 years navigating the boat, mixing the author's drinks and preparing his meals. "We were companions in everything, from morning until night. We had a very warm relationship."
While local legend claims that Fuentes is in fact Santiago of The Old Man and the Sea, the core inspiration came when Hemingway and Gregorio stumbled across an old timer struggling with a monster marlin in the Florida Straits. Hemingway and Fuentes offered to help the old man, but he waved them off. When Hemingway learned later that the old man had died in the struggle, the seed for the book was planted.
Fuentes was also the foundation for "Antonio" in Hemingway's posthumously published, and most autobiographical novel Islands in the Stream. The basis of the story is Hemingway's 22 accumulated years living in Cuba, living with his 57 cats, four dogs, and 9,000-volume library at, Finca Vigia, the Havana ranch where the author penned To Have and Have Not and The Moveable Feast. During this epoch, Hemingway spent two years with Fuentes in the Romano Archipelago, hunting German Nazi subs with an Thompson machinegun bolted to the Pilar's gun whale. Between 1942 and 1943, the Nazis had sunk four Cuban and U.S. merchant ships near Cuban shores, prompting the U.S. Navy to commission Hemingway as an enemy scout.
"There was fear that the Germans would enter the port of Havana and destroy everything," said Fuentes. "It was a bad situation. Our job was to watch for them and also German airplanes, preventing them from entering and taking the ports. When they encountered us they couldn't enter."
Fuentes, a larger-than life personality around Cojímar of late, was Cuba's last living link to the author. From Hemingway's flamboyant nightlife, to the secluded writer, to the high-sea adventures, Fuentes shared months on end with the author, coming to know him perhaps better than anyone living today. Before Fuentes' death, tourists would often stray up to Gregorio's Cojímar home for photos, enchanted by the thunderous bark of the mythical seaman. La Terraza, Hemingway's watering hole in Cojímar, has become a hotspot for scores of tourists following the scent of Cuba's "Hemingway Trail." Although Fidel Castro confessed that Hemingway's 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls was inspirational for his own guerrilla war, he only met the author once during the 10th annual Ernest Hemingway Marlin Fishing Tournament in 1960. Castro won the event, taking first prize. When Hemingway left Cuba that year, he gave the Pilar to Fuentes, who donated the boat to the Cuban government just after the author's 1961 suicide.
Hemingway considered himself a citizen of Cuba. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1954, he gave the medal to the church of La Virgen del Cobre in Santiago de Cuba. And in 1955, he was awarded the Order of San Cristobal of Havana. During his Cuban residency, Hemingway experienced the most unstable and bloody years in the island's history, writing just before his death, "I am totally convinced of the historic necessity of the Cuban revolution."
His last words to Fuentes in 1960 when he left Cuba forever: "Take care and watch yourself. Well, see you soon."
Ernest Hemingway's words describing the character Santiago, immortalized in his 1952 classic, The Old Man and the Sea are as timeless as a key inspiration to the character, Gregorio Fuentes, who died last week at age 104 in the Cuban fishing village of Cojímar, the salty backdrop for the story just east of Havana.
"All of my memories with Hemingway are good ones," Fuentes explained in a lucid interview before his death. "They were very happy times for us both. Full of adventure. We were young and full of life."
Fuentes, born in 1897 on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, immigrated to Cuba at age six and was raised among fishermen in Cojímar, where he spent his entire life. In 1928, Fuentes worked as a fish merchant, trading between Havana and Florida. One day Hemingway was out searching for onions and rum with friends when a tropical storm swept in, forcing him to take refuge with his rented rum-runner's boat, the Anita, at Dry Tortugas off the Florida Keys. Here he met Fuentes for the first time. In 1938, recalling how spotless Fuentes kept his vessel, for $250 a month, Hemingway hired "Grigorine" as captain and cook of his sport fishing boat, the Pilar, and a lifelong, endearing friendship ensued.
"Women and whiskey, yes. Rum never. Hemingway drank only whiskey," said Fuentes, explaining how he spent 22 years navigating the boat, mixing the author's drinks and preparing his meals. "We were companions in everything, from morning until night. We had a very warm relationship."
While local legend claims that Fuentes is in fact Santiago of The Old Man and the Sea, the core inspiration came when Hemingway and Gregorio stumbled across an old timer struggling with a monster marlin in the Florida Straits. Hemingway and Fuentes offered to help the old man, but he waved them off. When Hemingway learned later that the old man had died in the struggle, the seed for the book was planted.
Fuentes was also the foundation for "Antonio" in Hemingway's posthumously published, and most autobiographical novel Islands in the Stream. The basis of the story is Hemingway's 22 accumulated years living in Cuba, living with his 57 cats, four dogs, and 9,000-volume library at, Finca Vigia, the Havana ranch where the author penned To Have and Have Not and The Moveable Feast. During this epoch, Hemingway spent two years with Fuentes in the Romano Archipelago, hunting German Nazi subs with an Thompson machinegun bolted to the Pilar's gun whale. Between 1942 and 1943, the Nazis had sunk four Cuban and U.S. merchant ships near Cuban shores, prompting the U.S. Navy to commission Hemingway as an enemy scout.
"There was fear that the Germans would enter the port of Havana and destroy everything," said Fuentes. "It was a bad situation. Our job was to watch for them and also German airplanes, preventing them from entering and taking the ports. When they encountered us they couldn't enter."
Fuentes, a larger-than life personality around Cojímar of late, was Cuba's last living link to the author. From Hemingway's flamboyant nightlife, to the secluded writer, to the high-sea adventures, Fuentes shared months on end with the author, coming to know him perhaps better than anyone living today. Before Fuentes' death, tourists would often stray up to Gregorio's Cojímar home for photos, enchanted by the thunderous bark of the mythical seaman. La Terraza, Hemingway's watering hole in Cojímar, has become a hotspot for scores of tourists following the scent of Cuba's "Hemingway Trail." Although Fidel Castro confessed that Hemingway's 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls was inspirational for his own guerrilla war, he only met the author once during the 10th annual Ernest Hemingway Marlin Fishing Tournament in 1960. Castro won the event, taking first prize. When Hemingway left Cuba that year, he gave the Pilar to Fuentes, who donated the boat to the Cuban government just after the author's 1961 suicide.
Hemingway considered himself a citizen of Cuba. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1954, he gave the medal to the church of La Virgen del Cobre in Santiago de Cuba. And in 1955, he was awarded the Order of San Cristobal of Havana. During his Cuban residency, Hemingway experienced the most unstable and bloody years in the island's history, writing just before his death, "I am totally convinced of the historic necessity of the Cuban revolution."
His last words to Fuentes in 1960 when he left Cuba forever: "Take care and watch yourself. Well, see you soon."
Ben Corbett Copyright 2002
