Categories: Social Responsibility

RadioProfile | mountain sailors

Among the scenic coasts of the south, there are some, such as those of Nahuel Huapi, which were already a park when they were discovered, as Perito Moreno wanted. Others were parks and are still ignored by the common people, like Los Alerces. Some began to speak of a lake abundant in colossal trout, which was called Futalaufquen, very close to Esquel. In that decade of the 50s, Esquel was one more nebula, in the chain of questions of the hazardous route 40, next to the mountain range, always to the south…

One spring, a strange character, painter and fisherman, of Nordic origin, Eric Gornik his name, quoted the few journalists who brought the issue to a conference at the then Parks Directorate; and he overwhelmed, with hundreds of projections in which trout, never seen before, gave us the sparkles of their scales, with the lure or the spoon still attached to their jaws. Shortly after, the first “National Holiday” was held, a rather loud way of promoting the place, which was, however, relatively successful. Excursions are organized, which begin in the elegant turboprop airliner plane, arrive at the flying stone runway, continue by truck to the lake, and continue in fast and light boats along those lonely coasts. The trout were there, and the party ended with a shot on the shore of the lake. Other times other circumstances.

In one of them I met Martín Mermoud, from whom I received my first mountain navigation lessons, in boats of more than 7 meters in length, built with local wood, and frames almost 4 inches thick. That length corresponds to the distance between crest and crest of the waves in the place.

Martin arrived at the appointment on time. We loaded the boat, and a 15 hp motor transported us out into the lake. One afternoon we landed in the Bahía de Toro, where the light rain and wind introduced us to an unreal world, with almost no sounds and few images. Perhaps it was that environment that induced Martín to remember the episode…

-“Before I was fifteen years old, I helped my father to take rafts to the end of the road that came from Esquel. We would make sections of four or five trunks and join them with wires; with some canvas that made sails, we let ourselves be carried away, preventing stranding with the poles; and behind a small boat, which we were towing tied up.

One spring afternoon a storm appeared. The wind was strong, as always in that season, and the waves began to loosen the bonds. In front of Punta Matos we had to adjust the wires several times, and when we were more than a thousand meters from the shore, the bundles of logs, one by one, began to come loose. The boat, which was secured to one of them, also left, and drifted. My father and I stayed in the center of the raft, which was closer together, but the waves still passed over us. I remember that, almost sobbing, I asked him somehow, if the trip would end there…

-Don’t worry, -he told me-, the logs that were released were to deceive the lake, the center of this barge, sure, holds.

I stayed by his side, holding on to the belt of his panties, and without wanting to look at the side of the wind, which was strong and sustained, pushing us towards the coast. At last, almost dark, the first mallet made landfall and, by the most frightful trunks, we disembarked. Right there we made a fire, dried some clothes, and heated up a leg of capon, which was all our dinner. In the morning we scoured the coast and little by little we recovered almost all the logs and the boat.”

The story had been forceful. A man and a child at the mercy of the storm on a precarious raft, and without even a rudder. Martín had already exceeded 50, and that afternoon, while we returned, the wind was also blowing strongly. The boat moved over the crests almost without pitching; I watched the trout caught and attended to the biscuit and gin treat. We sailed in silence.

Mountain sailors, I thought. Icy water holds no one and one fall into it can mean the last. The jangada had endured miraculously, or by making that calculation of effort and resistance, that the people of the south, know from birth. Because in that calculation, life is almost always at stake.

Text by Rodolfo Perri