COJIMAR (Cuba), Jan 14: Gregorio Fuentes, former captain of U.S. novelist Ernest Hemingway’s boat in Cuba and his inspiration for “The Old Man And The Sea”, died on Sunday aged 104 in the fishing village of Cojimar.

“He was a symbol of Cuban fishing and of human brotherhood, thanks to all of his years of friendship with Hemingway,” a friend, Jose Miguel Diaz Escrich, who runs Havana’s Hemingway International Nautical Club, said.

Fuentes, born on July 11, 1897, captained Hemingway’s boat “Pilar” when the U.S. author lived on the Caribbean island. In recent times, he had become something of a tourist magnet in Cojimar, just east of Havana, where he once used to embark on marlin-fishing trips with the adventure-loving Hemingway.

“My grandfather was loved by everyone,” his granddaughter America Aguas Fuentes told Reuters outside Gregorio Fuentes’ simple house in Cojimar. “He used to really enjoy recounting stories, especially about the wonderful times he had with Hemingway, whom he always carried with him in his mind.”

Fuentes died at his home on Sunday morning and was buried at a cemetery in the nearby village of Guanabacoa in the afternoon, friends said. Although still mentally lucid, he was suffering various ailments associated with old age.

“He was a humble man of the people, who showed great mastery in the arts of the sea and left a legacy of friendship which is an example to us all,” Escrich added.

Hemingway’s 1952 masterpiece modeled its central character, and his colossal struggle to bring in the fish of his life, on Fuentes. “The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck,” Hemingway wrote in his opening description of the weather-beaten fisherman.

“The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert.

“Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated,”

Last November, the writer’s niece, Hilary Hemingway, presented the International Game Fish Association’s (IGFA) “Captain” award to the cigar-smoking Fuentes at the Havana yacht marina named after her uncle.

“I’m delighted. It’s a very important prize for my people,” Cuba’s most famous mariner said then after joining the IGFA’s exclusive club of 197 “Captains.” “I would like to honor a great fisherman,” Hilary Hemingway said in her speech giving the prize.

Of late, Fuentes, whose local fame was also based on his survival of several hurricanes at sea, was said to have been getting tired of the tourists flocking to his door and frequently expressed nostalgia for his heyday with Hemingway.

“Since he died, life hasn’t been the same for me and I haven’t been fishing like the old days,” Fuentes, said in a recent interview.—Reuters