From Sixth Fleet Sailors to cruise passengers

On Saturday afternoon I went to the Museu Marítim de Barcelona with the intention of seeing an exhibition titled El desig és tan fluid com la mar (Desire is as fluid as the sea) which revolves around the erotic, sexual, and sentimental relationships that have occurred, for centuries, aboard ships.

The Marítim is one of the seven cultural institutions in the city that, around June 28th ---International LGTBI Pride Day--- and in collaboration with the LGTBI Center, have very successfully programmed a series of proposals to vindicate sexual and gender diversity.

The problem is that, as one of the Marítim employees kindly informed me, on Saturday afternoon, the exhibition was not yet open to the public. It's not the first time this has happened to me, going to a museum to see an exhibition that hasn't opened yet.

Anyway, since I was already there and it was unbearably hot outside, I decided to go in anyway. Strolling for a while through the old Royal Shipyards of Barcelona, ​​majestic like a Gothic cathedral and practically deserted at that hour, will always be much better than taking refuge from the heat in an anodyne and packed shopping center.

Strolling for a while through the old Royal Shipyards of Barcelona, ​​majestic like a Gothic cathedral and practically deserted at that hour, will always be much better than taking refuge from the heat in an anodyne and packed shopping center

Just past the entrance, I was surprised by a small exhibition dedicated to the photographic collection of Joaquín Tusquets de Cabirol, recently acquired by the Marítim. Tusquets de Cabirol's snapshots ---a chemical expert from a wealthy family passionate about photography--- are a journey to Barcelona in the 1940s and 1950s.

They show everyday scenes from those hard post-war years, many related to the sea. There are, for example, a few images that bear witness to the presence of the US Sixth Fleet in the city's port, quite an event. They are accompanied by a small text explaining that those young sailors, dressed in their characteristic white uniforms, brought airs of modernity to the city: rock and roll, jeans...

I leave the museum, an hour later, satisfied to have had an entertaining time and, suddenly, I see a bus pass with an advertisement for one of the main tourist cruise operators. It's a very simple ad. The message couldn't be clearer. "We are back in Barcelona".

The current Barcelona has little to do with that poor, gray and sad city of the forties and fifties that welcomed with open arms those Genetian sailors of the Sixth Fleet loaded with dollars, modernity and testosterone

I think that the current Barcelona has little to do with that poor, gray and sad city of the forties and fifties that welcomed with open arms those Genetian sailors of the Sixth Fleet loaded with dollars, modernity and testosterone. Perhaps for this reason, we are not jumping for joy now at the return of cruise passengers.