The Cruising Kingdom of Juan Baro

by Nancy Knudsen on 20 Feb 2007 The voice booms above the clatter of the small office. He is a smallish man, with a neat grey beard that he smoothes with one hand constantly as if protecting it from theft. He holds his ever-present cigarette with the other. He’s dressed impeccably in white, and he’s clearly the commander of his world - yachties come and go via the swinging door - they have questions or information for him and all have a deferential smile and a breezy word.

We are in Porlamar on the Island of Margarita, off the coast of Venezuela. The owner of the booming voice is Juan Baro, for seven years the King of check-in and the brains trust for all yachtie needs in the town.

His palace is a small white cottage by wide-open shore of Porlamar, his grand entrance a dinghy dock where the security man lives on the tips of passing cruisers. The water is so shallow you have to be told where the deep water is to even reach the dinghy dock.

Juan runs free shopping trips to the local shopping malls. We suspect that the shopping malls are paying for the minivans, but it’s a great service, and we are too polite to ask.

The shopping trips are an extraordinary experience, not for the shopping, which is ordinary and the goods plentiful, but for the security measures. While we see no sign of criminality, the symbols are all around. The way to the shopping malls in Juan’s minibus are through streets where every single structure is barred, and every wall encrusted with broken glass or razor wire. The residential streets consist of square blocky one story concrete buildings, paint faded or gone, crumbling stone all around. There are no gardens, and the streets are neglected, rubbish-filled places. 'It’s much worse on the mainland of Venezuela' a knowledgeable cruiser in the bus tells us, watching my face as we travel.

In the bus we are all give a plasticised number on a string to hang around our necks. This is to tell the world at large that we are part of a shopping trip. In the shops, when they see our ‘number’ they immediately put our purchased goods into boxes, which are sealed with vast quantities of wide sticky tape, numbered with our number and the ID number of our shopping receipt. This is done with great solemnity. When shopping is finished, all these sealed boxes are taken from us and sent to the minivan. Back at the shore, the boxes are unloaded, seals and numbers checked again, and carried to the end of Juan’s dinghy dock. We tip the workers for their trouble, and that, explains, Juan Baro, is compulsory.

The security is worthy of a big international airport.

'When I first set up my business here,' Juan tells me later, 'There were so few cruisers, I had little to do. Now, well, there are 67 boats in the anchorage today, and at the height of the season, you can see maybe 160 every day.'

Juan rightly takes the credit for this, providing security for the cruisers and their dinghies, which are guarded all the time we are away. We are told not to wander off alone, and never at night.

I ask Juan about this: 'Well,' he looks out the window, thinking. 'You know Robin Hood? Was he a good man or a bad man?' – 'Good' I reply dutifully.

Now he gets excited. 'Yes! He was a good man, because he took from the rich and gave to the poor. All these guys are doing is cutting out the middle man!'

I laugh, because he’s comic, but I am not quite sure it’s funny.

Juan, however, is not finished with his philosophy, and his intensity demands attention. ' Every day in this world,' he goes on, 'more and more people are waking up to say ‘What am I going to eat today?’ So they must go hunting. You know the difference between the hunter and the victim?' he doesn’t wait for an answer ' – attention! The hunter is vigilant, and the victim is unaware. So I say to you, ‘Be vigilant.’ ‘Be aware.’ The hunter is waiting for opportunity – don’t give the hunter the opportunity.’'

'Once a very nice French family asked me whether it was safe to go along the coast from here. I gave them all my advice, but they were not satisfied. ‘Yes but is it SAFE for us to go there? – listen, would YOU take YOUR children along this coastline?’

'I didn’t have to think about that. ‘Take my children? In a sailing boat out into the ocean? Are you crazy? Of course I wouldn’t take MY children out in the middle of the ocean in a sailing boat!’'

So we all have our particular bete noires.

Juan Baro appears to love what he does. His exuberance and enthusiasm dominate and infuse the atmosphere of the small community around him. Outside on the shady verandah, the cruisers are meeting to trade treasures from their boats – it’s actually just an excuse for a beer, and it’s a party atmosphere.

'Ah yes,' says Juan Baro, ' I love what I do. I was born to a rich family in Chile, so my Jesuit education gave me many languages and a yearning to discover the world. So I ruined my father and grandfather’s lives by going travelling – for 20 years I travelled the entire world except China and Russia. Here,' and he pauses for effect, 'The World comes to me!'

Juan Baro claims that with every yachtie cruiser that comes to town he has the opportunity to discover, learn, to share, to help. And this is the cause of his happiness.

'Ah, but something I DON’T share with cruisers is their lack of compromise!'
This is puzzling, and I ask him to explain.
'If they like an anchorage, they will stay. Maybe they come for two days, and stay for months. But if they find something they don’t like, they just pick up their anchor and sail away to find another anchorage. But they don’t realise that they will not find the answer in another anchorage – they only find the answer within themselves. The art of living is to know how to compromise – all things are a compromise – compromise of truth, or honesty, of effort, responsibility, of sacrifice.'

Juan is warming to his subject.

'Charlie Brown once said. ‘I’m bored. If I were a bird and I were bored, I could fly away. Then if I were bored again, I could fly away again. Then if I were bored again, I could fly away again.' Charlie Brown pauses. 'I don’t think I would like to be a bird.’'

Juan has three daughters and a son by two marriages - Joreana and Sabina by his first marriage, and Istella Leonore and Juan Ricardo with his wife Isabella – ‘a hero woman’ says Juan.

This visit has been easy – we have become accustomed to locking our dinghy with steel wire, raising the boat at night - ‘Lock it, lift it or lose it’ – is the motto of the cruisers here. Juan Baro has been a wonderful host, his warmth and bonhomie spreading goodwill among the many cruisers in the anchorage.

'I have never had a holiday – for seven years I have been here EVERY day except Sundays. But you know, I think my son Juan Ricardo is right when he says, ‘Why do you need a holiday? – look where you work! Every day is a holiday!’'