by Josep Pla
“If I’d have been in your yacht, I’d have made for the first port I could find and laid anchor. I’d have let the squall blow over my deck. You had Roses within reach. You had Cadaqués, which, however ignorant you are of local charts and waters, offers a splendid safe haven. When you’re out at sea, you must always be weighing up the forces at play and making decisions based on experience. What made you decide not to head for a port?”
“It’s very simple. We reckoned that the drop in the wind meant the sea was mellowing. When it was windless, we forecast a becalmed sea.”
“That was a very odd calculation to make, devoid of any basis in reality.”
“I agree. But at the time, it was the only clear conclusion we could draw. We didn’t even think about putting the state of the sea down to the conflict between the current and a distant wind, do you see?”
“Yes, senyor. I see you only too well.”
I was astounded. I’d never seen Captain Gibert say so much in a conversation. He usually spoke so sparely that I’d sometimes walk the whole length of La Riba practically without hearing his voice. He was a small, fair, thin man with tired, bloodshot eyes and a singed mustache, who gave you the impression he was in full control of his every gesture; he was quietly spoken and looked rather suspicious, and his age meant he walked slowly. When anyone asked him something, he wouldn’t necessarily say anything in reply: he’d wave his hand, which he must have thought sufficed. That’s why I couldn’t understand why he was being so talkative now. I later decided he took such an interest in the exchange because he wanted to ensure the French gentleman didn’t experience further misfortunes. I decided that because one day I heard him come out with a very strange statement in the café. Namely: “The same folk always sink out at sea.”
“So then,” said Gibert, picking up the thread of the conversation, “you passed the Meda strait battling against an adverse head current and a choppy sea, and when you entered the gulf, it was much calmer…You were powered by your engine…”
“Yes, senyor. We’ll talk about the engine later because it was a decisive factor in our disaster. When we entered the gulf, things visibly improved. That was another element our ignorance reinforced, because it gave us a false perception of reality. However, now we’ve got to this point, I must confess something else: we were in a rush, our holidays were coming to an end and we couldn’t afford more time.”
“When you’re out at sea, it can be very dangerous to be in a rush…”
“Besides, we’d grown rather tired of life on the yacht. The seasick professor was always throwing up. Our mariner said he was longing to be on land and was getting increasingly belligerent. He was a nautical club sailor. Sometimes that kind of man is excellent; but they’re often pure armchair mariners. I was bearing up as best I could. I was upset by the way our craft was pitching and constantly afraid the rigging would come down. What’s more, I can tell you these small yachts look so pretty anchored by a nautical club, are so slim lined and attractively painted, but they are incredibly uncomfortable and exhausting when the weather and sea are rough. I’m sure if we’d been in a local fishing smack, we’d have had a safer voyage and enjoyed a greater level of stability.”
“Please, do continue…”
“When we were by the Roses coast, sheltered by the coastline, the sea yielded a little and we became complacent again, as I mentioned. However, as soon as we left the bay, in the precise spot on the chart called Cape Figuera, the swell became heavier and we felt the first gusts from the north in our faces. I glanced at the panorama before us and saw, beyond Cape Creus, a heaving line of wind and spray that sometimes looked like dust, and frankly I was totally flummoxed. I was sure the weather wouldn’t change. The fishermen told us they couldn’t believe it when they saw us sail past Cadaqués Bay…”
“Of course they couldn’t,” said Gibert. “They were astonished to see you sail past and not take advantage of the safe haven of Cadaqués…Much sturdier vessels than yours would have done so, are always doing so…”
“Well, we didn’t and that’s why we are in the pickle we find ourselves. The number of miles to Port-Vendres had diminished and we sailed on blindly, one might say. We wanted to finish our holidays as soon as possible, because the sea rusts and corrodes everything and can drive you irresistibly on to make your escape. It had been exhausting ever since we left Palamós, and the politest word heard on board was ‘merda.’ We were at our wits’ end; we couldn’t stand any more. When it’s holiday time, any weather report that doesn’t fit the bill is unwelcome. The truth is, when we reached the waters of Cape Creus, we encountered a choppy, swirling sea, which made sailing by Cape Begur seem like child’s play. What’s more, we had a northwesterly head wind that had settled in at implacably gale force. When we went up the Claveguera strait, which is the far end of the horn of the Gulf of Lion (the other end being the Hyères Islands), it was as if a battle against nature was unleashed. Perhaps we should have entered the Claveguera strait…” added the Frenchman pensively.
“No, senyor!” said Gibert. “You should have stayed outside. And not because you’d have met better weather outside but because any engine failure could have been fatal while you were so close to land.”
“That was precisely the source of all our troubles…”
“Of course it was. You were too close to land, your engine gave up the ghost and the sea and wind literally blew you onto the rocks…It was inevitable. But forgive me, that was just a passing comment, please do carry on…”
“So we entered the Claveguera strait and became locked in a terrible struggle. The sea was choppy and the spray brought tears to our eyes. They were literally streaming. The waters were churning infernally above a huge swell…
“The sea and wind were clashing against the current coming from the opposite direction that I mentioned before.
“We could have done three things in that situation: first, retreat and find shelter; second, leave the strait, hoist a jib sail and keep away from the coast; third, continue hugging the coast using our engine. We chose the last option because we thought it would be the easiest, and it turned out disastrously. I’m sure that if the yacht hadn’t had an engine, we’d have decided to do what the situation required from a sailor’s point of view or turned round to seek out a safe haven or hoisted the jib sail and kept away from the coast. Now, Professor Burgoing’s state was on my mind, he was so sick and out of sorts, on his last legs as the result of our day at sea, that I’m sure we’d have decided to retrace our steps. But that engine was our undoing. We sailed on very close to land, an unknown, dangerous coast that seemed inaccessible, sheer, though I have seen that really wasn’t the case, because that coast does have its safe havens, if you know it at all well…”
“Few and far between…” muttered Gibert.
“On the other hand, it was getting dark. We were facing a fearsome sea. The distance to Port-Vendres had shortened, though, in fact, it was farther away than ever. I’d spent the whole day dreaming we’d already arrived. I could see Professor Burgoing lying comfortably in his sleeping car on the Paris express, a light on behind his pillow, reading a book about Tarraco. Suddenly, a huge parcel of water crashed on deck, and our engine spluttered ominously and then just cut out…”
“Right, the engine gets doused and packs up…” said Gibert, smiling oddly. “I bet if you’d have been sailing in your local sea, you’d have managed things better.”
“That’s very likely…”
“How come you thought the seawater here wouldn’t soak it?” asked Gibert, as kindly as he could.
“Our engine’s demise was the beginning of the end. As a result, we couldn’t steer. We tried to hoist a sail but that proved impossible. We were so close to land that fishermen sheltering in an inlet by the cape told us our yacht was pitching and heeling so much it must have hit an underwater reef to the west of the Claveguera strait. I don’t know i
f we did or didn’t graze it. What I do know is that we sprang a leak, the yacht began to lean over and we could think only of abandoning ship. We quickly gathered up what we could, forgetting the money, and lowered the dinghy with difficulty. It was hard work shifting Professor Burgoing’s body. He was a deflated, dead weight. I don’t know how we reached the coast and landed, particularly with the burden of the professor. It must be what people call a miracle. When we crawled up to the first plateau, I looked back for a moment. The yacht had disappeared. It was almost pitch black. I saw a light to the northwest, far away: it must have been the light at the entrance to the port of Béar. Yes, it was the light at the entrance to Port-Vendres, which is where we wanted to end up. You could see next to nothing of the immediate coast: only hear the growling roar of the sea and whistling gusts of wind.”
Gibert said nothing. I lit a cigarette. The Frenchman ordered another absinthe and rested a hand on his shoulder for a while as if he was embarrassed. With that we saw a tall, skinny middle-aged man with a receding hairline standing by our table. He wore spectacles and looked pallid; one arm in a sling and one hand bandaged. There was a plug of cotton wool in each of his ears: he seemed exhausted and on his last legs. We imagined this had to be Professor Burgoing. When the Frenchman registered his presence, he gulped down his aperitif, stood up, paid and said goodbye to us, then warmly took the newcomer’s arm and left the terrace with him.
Now we were by ourselves. Gibert gave me a lengthy stare and said not a word. I assumed that after his surprisingly loquacious outburst, his organism was returning to its natural state – namely, to its usual silence. But he hadn’t yet finished that chatty streak, because after straightening the peak of his cap, he came out with this rush of words: “This is an amateur’s shipwreck. There are people who never know where they’re going. The misfortune experienced by these gents only confirms what you may have heard me say previously: the same folk always go down. If they go back out to sea, they go down again.”
I felt he was laying it on rather thick and quite inopportunely, but Captain Gibert always inspired great respect in me as a seafarer, so I didn’t dare raise the slightest objection. However, I tried to emphasize my lack of response, leading him to understand I really thought he was being too harsh in his judgments.
“Bah…!” he finally exclaimed. “I see you don’t agree. Senyor Víctor, may God have forgiven him, always said I was too stubborn and independent. That must be why I’ve ended up in the office at the magistrates’ court in Cadaqués…not that I’m complaining! Be that as it may, the shipwreck of these French gentlemen reminds of a Basque skipper I met one day, years ago, in the port of Naples, a man with a fantastic reputation, who told me, rather bemused, that he’d spent the worst hours of his career sailing in the Gulf of Lion. I didn’t even respond. That captain was as foolish as those Frenchmen who’ve gone off to eat supper. At sea, a professional in the trade can never meet surprises. If there are any surprises, it’s because something has gone wrong, right? Too many people have been shipwrecked by Cape Creus for such disasters to be at all novel. There can be no surprises. The sea is the sea…”
I tried to persuade the old captain from the merchant navy to elaborate and make his reasoning more explicit. But that proved futile. His harangue was limited to what I’ve transcribed. Once he’d said all that, he returned to his impenetrable silence. Seeing we’d reached the end of our exchange, we said goodbye. In later conversations Captain Gibert has never referred back to the events I’ve just noted.
Valin the jurist relates that in some places in Germany they used to pray in public to God asking for lots of shipwrecks on their coasts. “There was a singular abuse in Protestant churches in the Electorate of Hanover, where public requests were made to Heaven, especially in stormy weather for the cargo and other effects from vessels shipwrecked in the German sea to land up on the coast of that electorate, rather than others, so they could derive full benefit. The Council that was charged with the Regency of that state had to ban such requests most rigorously.”
In 1794, Cambry, in his excellent book on Brittany, wrote in his descriptions of the Lesneven coast: “Shipwrecks are frequent along those coasts and their inhabitants display a fondness for pillaging that nothing has been able to stop, for they regard the objects that storms or the sea brings to their coasts as gifts from God. In any case, there are also families that never join in the thieving and feel dishonored if, when the horde rushes to the beach to share in the spoils from wrecks, they take steps to be involved in the proceeds.”
Zurcher et Margollé, Naufrages Célebres.
Over the years many people have been shipwrecked off the Cadaqués coast of Mar d’Amunt, or, if you will, Cape Creus. It’s a forsaken, inhospitable place. In ancient times Cape Creus was called Cape Diable. It was an appropriate name. During the baroque period, “Devil” was switched to something hallowed. However, I think it was easier to hallow the geographical name than the weather thereabouts.
The Mar d’Amunt coast has a geographical incision called the Galera beach (a small affair with the finest sand), which lies opposite a promontory bearing the same name: the Galera promontory. On 22 March 1654 two large galleons were wrecked in the area, one under a Dutch flag, and the other under the flag of the masters of Genoa. No trace of the memory of those wrecks remains in Cadaqués. Our memory of things is very short. The memory of what’s pleasant is short, of what is unpleasant, even shorter. A couple of generations and everything fades and is erased.
First of all, you will be struck by the date of the wrecks: 22 March – that is, the day after the spring equinox. A bad time to be sailing, with evident danger, especially in that area. I’ve already said that it’s impossible now to find any trace of these misfortunes. All we know comes from a book printed in Barcelona in 1659 with the title Legal Defence on Behalf of Doctor Antonio Pastor de Costa, which Josep Rahola spotted and bought in an antiquarian bookshop in that city. Josep Rahola, a dentist in Barcelona, son of the Cadaqués doctor, is today the man who knows most about his town. If his spirit of curiosity ever finds a structure, one day we’ll have his book, a history of Cadaqués full of revelations and surprises. As things stand now, we know almost nothing.
The sinking of the two galleons is the basic subject of the book I have just mentioned, as I was informed by Josep Rahola himself, although the actual shipwrecks are practically hidden in its pages by what followed afterward, which was quite remarkable. The information on the wrecking is sparse, as are details concerning the weather at the time. Naturally the galleons were looted and what wasn’t looted was salvaged in strange, equivocal circumstances. These actions make up the bulk of the book.
The galleons were coming from Cádiz and sailing in a convoy. According to the book mentioned, the Dutch galleon was the Great Pelican and was carrying a cargo of solid silver, money amounting to one hundred fifty thousand pieces of eight, and other items. The Genoese vessel, named L’Annunziata like the Superba’s cathedral, was transporting Brazilian tobacco, pepper, cinnamon, precious stones and an unspecified amount of money to support pious work in Jerusalem. The first vessel is a typical example of shipping in the era of the Spanish empire, when the wealth of America entered through the ports legally registered for trade with the other hemisphere and exited by way of frontiers in the north. This process was generally a way to pay back the finance lent to the Habsburgs for their follies, usually by Genoese bankers.*1 Those bankers were the discoverers of America. It seems that the Genoese boat specialized in dealing in spices.
One day in the Bar Marítim in Cadaqués, equipped with these scraps of information, I talked to Captain Gibert, whom readers have already met, about the wrecks, hoping his comments might cast some light on what happened. He listened to me with that impassive, distant, almost stolid mien he adopted when concentrating, his bluish eyes focusing on the shoulder of the customer seated at the next table. When I’d had my say, he smiled at me wryly
.
“You shouldn’t surmise that the wrecking of those galleons was much different from the sinking of that French yacht we were arguing about the other day. They all let themselves be caught in a mousetrap. Perhaps they were also in too much of a rush. At sea, boats with no power of their own should never be in a hurry. A mistake of that kind can cost you dearly…”
He paused for a moment, then continued: “Those galleys, as if I were seeing them now, were sailing toward Cape Leucate, intending, once they’d arrived there, to head for Cape Corona on the Provence coast, in the Camargue, thus avoiding the Tinyaus, which is at the bottom of the sack of the Gulf of Lion. They could have reached Genoa by keeping close to the coast from Cape Corona…What I can’t understand is why they sailed so close to the coast at the time of the equinox. Perhaps it was because that stretch of sea was dangerous, infested as it was by all manner of pirates, corsairs, Moors and other dubious types. If that was the case, then the shipwrecks are understandable, because if they were close to the coast, a sudden northwesterly could have blown them off course onto the rocks, where they’d have broken up. If they went close to land, it was because they were ignorant of this coast. They didn’t even know they were making a serious mistake, a tremendously foolhardy act. It’s incredible…even if you aren’t familiar with the ways of the sea, it’s easy enough to bungle.”
“Perhaps they were scared and in a rush. They were carrying such valuable cargo…”
“That’s right! Just what I was saying a moment ago. If those people were forced, for whatever reason, to hug the coast and, into the bargain, weren’t acquainted with local conditions, I mean were ignorant of the signs warning of a coming mistral, then they were doomed if one did blow up. Gales from the east usually set in during the equinox and solstice. Now, a sudden change in the wind, however slightly pointed up, is always possible. The mistral must have blown them onto La Galera, where they were battered to smithereens in a second. It’s a mistake to believe that safety at sea comes from sailing close to rocks. Not at all. Boats need water, the more water the better, so they can move freely. The names Galera and the Galera promontory must be the only remaining memory of those events.”