"The morning was crystal clear. There couldn't be any doubt that the land was real. All the frustrated joys of the previous days - the planes, the lights of the ships, the sea gulls, the changing color of the sea - instantly came alive again at the sight of land."
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel García Márquez is the tale of Luis Alejandro Velasco's ten days on a life raft after being washed overboard while serving as a crew member aboard the Caldas, a Colombian destroyer ship in the Caribbean Sea.
Velasco's life and death story makes for quite the saga. Equally dramatic, as it turned out, is the story behind the story as told by Gabriel García Márquez, a twenty-eight-year-old journalist at the time. As Gabriel reports, back in 1955 when he was given the assignment to work with Luis Alejandro Velasco, it was as if he had been given a time bomb. The reason relates to the ill-secured cargo aboard the Caldas, including refrigerators, washing machines, and TV sets. It was highly illegal to transport contraband cargo on a destroyer. When a violent wind kicked up out at sea, the cargo and eight sailors, Velasco among them, were washed overboard. As Gabriel recounts, “Clearly, the account, like the destroyer, was loaded with an ill-secured moral and political cargo that we hadn't foreseen.”
But there was good news. Young Gabriel relates that Velasco had “an exceptional instinct for the art of narrative, an astonishing memory and ability to synthesize, and enough uncultivated dignity to be able to laugh at his own heroism.” In twenty daily six hour sessions, the pair put together a rip-roarding tale printed in fourteen installments of the Bogotá daily newspaper, El Espectator. People would line up at the newsstands eager to read the next installment. The circulation of El Espectator soared.
The tale itself is short and can be read in an afternoon. Here are several snips from the sailor's yarn along with my words.
“I confess that the movie also made an impression on me....I wasn't afraid, for an instructor had shown us how to fend for ourselves in the event of a shipwreck. Nonetheless, the uneasiness I felt the night we saw The Caine Mutiny wasn't normal.”
While in Mobile, Alabama, just a few days before the Caldas would set to sea, Velasco and his mates went to the theater to see the famous film. For Velasco, it wasn't events on the ship that made a deep impression, but rather the violent storm. Ah, a foreshadowing of catastrophe, recounted with all the dramatic flair we've come to expect from Gabriel García Márquez. There was good reason everyone lined up at the newsstands to read all about what would happen next to Velasco.
“A second later, about a hundred meters away, the ship surged up between the waves, gushing water from all sides like a submarine. It was only then that I realized I had fallen overboard.”
This part of the story makes for intense, high drama. Velasco swims, grabs hold of a crate and then finally pulls himself up on a life raft. Only a few meters away, his mates are shouting to one another, trying to stay afloat. It seems to him odd that none of his mates could reach any of the other life rafts. Velasco tries desperately to rescue one of his mates but the waves are rough, very rough. He keeps searching the sea, hoping beyond hope that someone, anyone, would surface soon. After ten minutes (Velasco is still wearing his watch), he's devastated. He realizes he's alone, alone on his life raft with no food or water.
“The wind died down by four in the afternoon. Since I could see nothing but water and sky, since I had no points of reference, more than two hours had passed before I realized that the raft was moving.”
Velasco figures in the next hour or two or three he'll see planes searching the sea. But there are no planes. Times passes, the minutes seem like hours, the hours seem like days. The sun goes down and night falls. Velasco tries to keep calm, even when the sharks arrive at five the next evening. We read, “A shark fin inspires terror because one knows how voracious the beast is. But in fact, nothing appears more innocuous than a shark fin.”
We're right there with Velasco over the course of the next nine days as he deals with the terrors of the sea and the terror of his own mind and ravaged body. What a tale. Pick up the Vintage International edition expertly translated by Randolph Hogan and read all about it.
Photo of the type of Luis Alejandro Velasco's life raft.
Young Gabriel García Márquez
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