Pepe de Olegario’s nautical charts

José López Redonda, Pepe de Olegario, born in Sardiñeiro in 1941, is one of the names of Finisterre’s maritime navigation. Until his retirement he fished for grouper on the high seas, sailing as far as Cape of San Vicente (Portugal) and after these voyages, combined with his restlessness, a constant investment in new navigation equipment and communication with other colleagues who informed him of nets “caught on hulls”, he shaped his nautical charts of the entire Galician coast. In them, all handwritten and hand-drawn with great detail and care, he documented hundreds of shipwrecks and stories of maritime events.

Since its inauguration in 2020, the Parador Nacional de A Costa da Morte (Lourido beach, Muxía) has a permanent display of Pepe de Olegario’s nautical charts, as well as two exclusive maps documenting the Prestige disaster in front of the area considered zone 0 of the catastrophe. The charts can be seen on the second floor, on the way to the establishment’s cafeteria (3rd floor). His maps were also the subject of an own exhibition and could be seen at the Cape Vilan lighthouse or at the Naval Museum in Madrid. Currently, they can be purchased at a craft store in Cee.

The construction of the Parador Nacional de A Costa da Morte was one of the great infrastructures of the 21st century, motivated by the Prestige maritime disaster. In fact, Muxía is considered zone 0.