María Oruña was looking for a treasure in the Indian Ocean and has finally found it in Vigo

Vigo"There are remains of galleons here, but everything that could be used has been looted, with or without permission," says the writer. Maria Oruna (Vigo, 1976) while sailing under a leaden sky through the Vigo estuary, between Corbeiro and Rande, where the sea narrows. 300 years ago, during the War of Succession, in that same place the water swallowed dozens of frigates and galleons during the naval battle of Rande, one of the most remembered by the inhabitants of Vigo. The Anglo-Dutch coveted the full bellies of the Spanish galleons of the Indies Fleet that had just arrived from the New World, and the Spanish-French, without much success, tried to protect them. The sunken ghost ships there even inspired Jules Verne. In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Captain Nemo travels the waters of the estuary to supply the Nautilus.

The epic of that battle of 1702, which Vigo remembers because the city was not very protected and the militias defended it as best they could, that is, peasants armed in a rather precarious way, is collected by Oruña in the novel The black albatross (Rosa de los Vientos / Plaza&Janes). The book tells the story of a young entomologist, a former corsair monk and an 18th-century Spanish adventurer, and how three centuries later a crime related to a treasure that was lost in that battle occurs.

The treasure that Oruña wants to find is related to that naval battle that left thousands dead, but it is located further north of the Rande bridge, in the Cíes Islands. Specifically, in the southern one, which can only be reached by private boat. "I spent many summers of my childhood here. We slept in the open air. If you go deeper into the island there is a jungle," she says. A jungle of giant ferns, pines and eucalyptus trees where there are still remains left by the hermits who lived there and where the heroine of the novel is happy observing wildlife. It is on the coasts of this island, which can still be dangerous to approach, where, according to Oruña, the galleon with the belly fullest of treasures is supposedly located: the Our Lord of Remedies and Saint Francis Xavier.

A royal treasure

"It was difficult for me to set the novel in Vigo, because Vigo is my refuge and I don't like to touch it, but I wanted to write an adventure novel and I was very clear that there had to be a real treasure," says the writer. Oruña searched for treasures in the Caribbean, in a place in the Indian Ocean... In the end, when she was about to take a plane to go to the Indian Ocean, in vain. find One near Calzoa beach, where she lives and where the first crime in the novel takes place. The writer was drawn to this ship that sank in the Cíes. "I contacted a submariner who is an accountant, like in the novel, and who has great knowledge of this galleon and I decided that I should investigate this story," she says. "I did research in the archives and began the adventure of reconstructing 18th century Vigo. I was born and grew up here and I knew almost nothing. Practically nothing has been done about the memory of this city. Even the Town Hall is built on a fortification, which must have been illegal at that time." "There is an important fishing port and there is a maritime economy and trade, but they should not be sustained at the expense of everything else," she adds.

From the sea, Oruña points out the place where there used to be a bastion that jutted out into the sea. Now there is an imposing shopping centre, and further south is the castle of San Sebastián and a trace of the walls that were destroyed in the 19th century. Now the most prominent building is the Town Hall, built in 1972, a large tower of an undefined colour that even the citizens of Vigo find hideous. Walking through the old town, the writer looks for the vestiges of that 1702: the house where she imagines Miranda lived, the heroine inspired by the German naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717); the Plaza Almeida, which was the Plaza de las Cebes and where the two oldest houses in the Galician city are located, or the printing press of Juan Compañel, where the writer imagines that Miranda prints the drawings with his admired insects and where, in reality, it was printed Galician songs, by Rosalía de Castro.

Oruña explains that she has done a lot of research, but perhaps the biggest complication has been writing in two different ways in the same novel. "I had to narrate differently and make the dialogues adapted to each period so that the changes in register were noticeable," she explains. The writer is convinced that the treasure is still buried somewhere in the south of the Cíes. "In the archives there is the document that the galleon left America in 1699, and it is written that it was lost in the battle that took place in Vigo. Unfortunately, many documents have been lost or have disappeared and we do not have any epistolary documentation either. The navy carried out a survey in the south of the Cies Islands looking for it." So far, no one has been able to unearth it.