When the Ocean Liner 'Begoña' Was in La Palma

At the beginning of the 1970s, one of the most remembered events in the long history of the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma took place, which was the stop of the Spanish ocean liner Begoña, arriving on the afternoon of May 28, 1970, from Venezuela, to disembark a group of compatriots coming to the island for the festivities of the Bajada de la Virgen Nuestra Señora de las Nieves. With them, the lustral cycle that had begun in 1955 was closed, when the Portuguese ocean liner Vera Cruz anchored in the shelter of Risco de la Concepción.

The Spanish ocean liner had completed the journey, with a stop in Port of Spain (Trinidad), in eight legs and with 110 passengers on board. In a clear manner, the prodigious memory and many experiences of Manuel Marrero Álvarez, who was then the director of the shipping agency Viuda e Hijos de Juan La Roche in Tenerife - and who would later become the company's delegate in the Canary Islands until his retirement - allow us to reconstruct, in detail, that endearing episode.

The stop of the Begoña in La Palma had the very valuable support of Manuel Padín García, who was then the commercial director of traffic for Compañía Trasatlántica Española in Madrid, and the ship's captain, Gerardo Larrañaga, who had been informed during the previous stop in Tenerife of the expectation that on the return trip it would enter the port of La Palma, as the island was on the eve of the celebration of the Bajada de la Virgen festivities, and both of them not only did not raise any objections but, on the contrary, were excited about the Begoña making a stop in La Palma.

“Captain Larrañaga, who has since passed away - recalls Manuel Marrero - was very taken with the idea, even though he did not know the port of La Palma, as he had never been to the island, nor was there a tugboat to assist him if necessary. He asked me to bring him a nautical chart and a port plan, and I remember I rushed to see Francisco Simón at the Maritime Command.”

The ocean liner 'Begoña' traveled directly from La Guaira to La Palma

On the appointed date, early in the morning, Manuel Marrero flew to La Palma and, together with journalist Juan Antonio Padrón Albornoz, was received at the airport by José Díaz Duque, representative of Consignataria Duquemar, one of the companies of businessman José Duque Martínez.

At five in the afternoon, the dock was a hive of activity. From the radio telephone of the motorboat Diana, which was docked in the port of La Palma, Manuel Marrero established contact with the captain of the Begoña, whose silhouette was already visible on the horizon.

“When I spoke with Captain Larrañaga, he told me he was about an hour away from arrival and that he had already established contact with the pilot of the La Palma port, who came out to meet him in his launch about two miles from the entrance. The pilot at that time was José Amaro Carrillo and González Regalado, a sailor from Puerto who fell in love with La Palma and lived there for the rest of his life. I spoke again with Captain Larrañaga when the ship was already heading for the entrance, and he said to me: 'This is going, Manolo. Don't worry. Yes, yes, we're going in, as the people of La Palma deserve it.' And so he brought the ship into the bay at six in the evening, in a spectacular maneuver and without a tugboat, which there wasn't, and considering that the Begoña was, for its time, a ship of considerable size and only had one propeller. Gerardo Larrañaga was a very good professional, and with the anchor and the engine, he brought it in quite precisely to the assigned spot.”

The Spanish ocean liner entered fluttering in the wind with its multicolored flags, and as it entered the bay of Santa Cruz de La Palma, it fired a salute of rockets and sounded its horn, as a cordial greeting to the city, the echo of which spread through the Risco de la Concepción. Shortly after, it was docked on the starboard side between the ships Diana, Plus Ultra, and Sierra Madre.

“I had never seen so many people to welcome a ship - continues Manuel Marrero - and that I was used to the passenger movement in the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. I was impressed. It exceeded all expectations. As the ship approached the dock, the shouting began, the emotion rose tremendously, there were people crying, others remembering the journey they had made on the ship when they went to Venezuela... something extraordinary that we experienced that afternoon.”

In addition to Captain Larrañaga, Manuel Marrero also recalled the memory of the ship's first officer, José Manuel Blasi; the chief engineer, Jesús Castro; and the purser, Isidro Bilbao, who was responsible for organizing a magnificent official reception on board followed by a dinner attended by the island's top authorities, as well as the mayors, all in a very emotional and cordial atmosphere.

“In Santa Cruz de La Palma, we had to disembark a sick passenger who was going to Vigo, who was hospitalized and very well cared for, continuing his journey to his destination afterward. I remember that the ship had made a stop in Trinidad, where it boarded a good number of colored passengers who were going to work in England. For a few hours, they strolled through the streets of Santa Cruz de La Palma, adding an exotic touch to that unforgettable afternoon.”

At midnight, the Spanish ocean liner continued its journey to Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Vigo, and Southampton. Little by little, the lights of the ship faded into the darkness of the night, and in Santa Cruz de La Palma, that day had been an intense and especially emotional day.

In a letter that Manuel Marrero Álvarez sent to Manuel Padín regarding the stop of the Begoña, dated the following day, he states: “Is it an exaggeration to say that it was the most apotheotic welcome given to a ship? I sincerely believe not. From the newspaper clippings I am attaching, you can appreciate the magnitude of the reception. From the moment it was sighted on the horizon, scenes of joy and emotion were reflected in thousands of relatives waiting for the passengers. Closer now, fully adorned, firing rockets and sounding its horn, the delirium reached unimaginable limits, uniting in emotion elderly people who had traveled to the capital just to see again, after half a century, a ship with the flag of Trasatlántica.”

A Ship with History

On March 16, 1957, in the port of Genoa, the Italian ocean liner Castel Bianco, previously owned by Sitmar Lines, was transferred to Compañía Trasatlántica Española and renamed Begoña. Under the command of Captain Jesús Meana Brun, the next day it made a trip to Barcelona, where it underwent modernization, eliminating the cabins and reducing the number of tourist class passengers, leaving it with a capacity for 830 places.

On April 4, it arrived for the first time at the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, with 214 transit passengers, to which another 238 Canarians bound for Venezuela were added, of whom 150 were part of the first expedition of the family reunification plan. In the South dock, it shared docking that day with the Italian ocean liners Roma, on its way to Australia, and Lucania, which competed on the Venezuela line. On the return to Spain, in May 1957, the ocean liner Begoña made its first trip to Australia and arrived in Sydney on June 20.

In May 1958, the Begoña made its first stop in Southampton. For twenty years, no other Spanish ocean liner had called at that English port. The line, at that time, followed an itinerary with stops in Bilbao, Santander, La Coruña, Vigo, Cádiz, Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, La Guaira, Cartagena, Kingston, and Curacao, and returned via La Guaira, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Vigo, Santander, and Southampton.

In May 1965, it rescued the nine crew members of the Norwegian schooner Mary Norman, which had shipwrecked off the coast of Grenada, in the Lesser Antilles, and they were disembarked in La Guaira for their subsequent repatriation by the Norwegian embassy.

On December 30, 1967, on a journey from La Guaira to Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the ship's doctor informed the captain of the ship, Francisco Onzáin Suárez, that one of the cooks had a serious hemorrhage and urgently needed blood plasma for a transfusion. The captain, seeing the doctor's desperation and that the ship was about 2,000 miles from the Tenerife port, radioed for help to the Coast Guard station in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which in turn notified the central office in New York.

The arrival of the ship in La Palma was a significant event

The captain detailed the case, and from the station, they asked what type of blood was needed, the ship's situation, speed, and course. The U.S. Coast Guard ordered a plane to depart from the Kindley base (Bermuda) and notified him that at noon on the 31st, it would be flying over the ocean liner and that when it was sighted, it should stop engines and lower a boat to collect the liquid, which would be dropped by parachute.

The next day, everything happened as planned. The meeting took place at position 23º 24’ N and 37º 52’ W. When the plane was sighted, a motorboat had already been lowered with a radio team, and orange smoke buoys were fired for quick location.

The plane made three low passes and dropped three small parachutes with five liters of frozen blood. The aircraft commander offered various medicines and a surgical kit, and said that if it was deemed necessary to operate on the patient, he would drop two specialized nurses by parachute to assist the ship's doctor.

The captain of the Begoña stated that the blood was sufficient and that the plane could return to its base, although it continued to circle the ship until the boat was hoisted back on board.

As a farewell, Captain Francisco Onzáin expressed himself in the following terms:

-Captain: “Commander, the United States is the greatest country in the world!”

-Commander: “Yes, Captain. Madrid is also very beautiful!”

-Captain: “Thank you very much.”

-Commander: “Thank you... you're welcome, friends.”

After making a new circle as a greeting around the ship, the plane returned to its base in Bermuda, on a journey covering 5,615 kilometers and taking a total of about seven and a half hours of flight, thus saving the life of the Begoña crew member.

On January 5, 1968, it arrived at the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and the crew member was admitted to the old hospital, and everything ended happily, except for the captain, as the ship was scheduled to enter dry dock in Ferrol, which meant two months of rest. But then he received a transfer order from Madrid to the ocean liner Montserrat and was left without vacation, as a “reward” for his radio conversation.

A few months after the triumphant stop in La Palma, on July 6, 1970, the ocean liner Begoña passed off the coast of Garachico. On board, it carried a statue of the Liberator Simón Bolívar, which was placed in the aforementioned town and port in northern Tenerife, as well as more than a hundred passengers from Venezuela, some of whom, moved, could not resist the temptation to jump into the water and swim to the shore of their homeland.

“The ship approaches the coast - writes Carlos Acosta - there is a huge crowd at the old dock, rockets are fired, and the ship stops. The emotion is enormous. It is almost three in the afternoon, and the atmosphere is one of an explosion of emotions and joys. Then, almost the entire town moves to Santa Cruz in an endless caravan to welcome the 'indianos'. There, in the port of Santa Cruz, the emotional scenes are repeated.”

On its last voyage, this ship perhaps starred in the most emotional chapter of its long maritime life. On October 4, 1974, after boarding 150 passengers, it set sail from the Tenerife port - captain, José Luis Tomé Barrado - on a journey to La Guaira, Curacao, Kingston, and Trinidad. On board were a total of 870 passengers and 120 crew members.

When it was approximately 1,600 miles from the Tenerife port, one of the two boilers in the engine room unexpectedly shut down, and fearing that the ship could lose propulsion and control, the captain alerted the ocean tug Oceanic, which was then about 200 miles from the Begoña.

As long as it could, the ocean liner continued the journey under its own power, with one boiler, at a speed of 14 knots and with the tug following in its wake, monitoring the situation. But the weather worsened, and due to the risk of running into a storm in the middle of the Atlantic with almost a thousand people on board, Captain Tomé Barrado decided to request the tug's assistance, and both docked, without further incident, in the waters of Bridgetown on October 17, from where the passengers continued their journey by plane to their respective destinations.

The breakdown of the ocean liner Begoña thwarted a farewell tribute that was being organized at the Tenerife port for the return trip, in which the civil governor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Rafael González Echegaray, who had been the deputy director of Trasatlántica when the company acquired the ship, would participate, and whose signature appeared on the purchase document.

From Bridgetown, the veteran Begoña returned to Spain under the tow of the Spanish tug Ibaizábal I, and although it was initially said that it would be taken to Vigo, it was towed to Valencia and then to Castellón, where it would be scrapped.

Published in Diario de Avisos, August 12, 2007

P.D. The account of the last voyage is taken from the press of the time, which provided a censored version somewhat distant from reality. Some time ago, a document came into our hands that recounts the truth of the events, analyzed from a professional perspective. In a future installment, we will refer again to the last voyage of the Spanish ocean liner Begoña, with many more details and clarifying the facts.

Photos: José and Tomás Ayut [Archive Juan Carlos Díaz Lorenzo]