Enrique Peña is the captain of the Polimnia sea guard, one of the Rescue ships with the most rescues carried out since 2019. He considers that “only people who know the sea, fishermen or sailors who have crossed the ocean in extreme conditions, can make a slight idea of ??what it is like to be in the middle of the sea in a boat that can capsize.” The most absolute darkness while the sea roars, and this, if everything goes well in the ten days of crossing that separate one coast from the other. At the time of the interview, Enrique Peña is on the command bridge of the Polimnia, alongside his sister ship, the seakeeper Talía, in the port of Arrecife (Lanzarote), waiting for an emergency warning to sound over the radio.
How are these months of service in the Canary Islands going?
We work with media. Currently, three of the four sea guards that Salvamento has are in the Canary Islands, in addition to the ten sea guards spread over seven islands. Now the calm begins and there will be an increase in migration. This year we also see an uptick with cayucos in the southern area that we had not seen for a long time.
You have carried out numerous rescues, do you remember any in particular?
I remember several, but I highlight one that impressed me. It happened in Almería. We rescued an almost sunken inflatable. There were people in the water and we managed to board them without much difficulty, but one of the women did not stop screaming, we found out that she was looking for her daughter. Hours later we found the little girl’s body floating. I took her in her arms, she was a two-year-old baby, the age my daughter was then.
What is the most delicate moment of the rescue?
When we approach your boat. They always get nervous. Everyone wants to save themselves as soon as possible and goes into survival mode. My crew is very well trained, tries to?keep them calm and sometimes acts firmly. You should also check if there are children.
Do they tip over?
Yes. The pneumatic ones, which break more easily, have more stability than the wooden ones, which we call boats. In these, if their occupants go to one side, they overturn.
What is the relationship like on board? Do you talk to them?
When you return with people on deck, you encounter many situations, children, people who are not doing well, neither physically nor psychologically. We have had cases of people who have wanted to jump into the water, literally. From catching them in extremis to almost having to tie them so they don’t jump.
And doesn’t he say to them “boy, what are you doing here in the middle of the sea”?
I was an emigrant, I went to France to look for work and a better life. I can understand where they are coming from. A boy whose hands had been cut off in the war was happy.
You were with Polimnia in Arguineguín in the fall of 2020, with five rescues a day, how do you remember those months?
Five? At that time we had up to 13 rescues in a row, we didn’t sleep. That was a tremendous, impossible barrage.
And then, returning to a dock where there were more than 2,000 people crammed together…
Overwhelming, it was more like a ghetto.
What are 100 kilometer boat trips like? There are those who believe that they are whimsical trips.
They have no idea. The sea at that distance becomes dark. That’s the word. There is tremendous darkness, there is no light. If you are lucky, you will see the stars. But if not, it is tremendous, you can’t see anything, and the sea roars… There are people who have no idea what it is. When we find bodies in boats it is because the occupants lack the strength to throw them into the sea.
What are the returns to land like with someone deceased on board alongside those who were their traveling companions?
A couple of years ago we had a boat in which there were three or four corpses. One was the brother of a survivor. He stayed until the last moment gently helping to get his brother out of him. My crew tried to protect him as best they knew how. Those kinds of things mark you, you know? They condition you. The writer Joseph Conrad, who was also a merchant marine captain in the 19th century, said that the ship on which we serve is the moral symbol of our existence. That can be applied to everything, to your way of working, to your life. Working on a Rescue ship always conditions you.
