The sea has played an integral part in Fuentes' life. He was born on July 11, 1897, on the Canary Islands. His mother, Sebastiana Betancourt, was a housewife, his father, Pedro, a laborer on a cargo ship. The younger Fuentes' first adventure at sea, at the tender age of six, had tragic consequences. While on a voyage with his father from the Canary Islands to the West Indies to deliver potato seeds, the elder Fuentes was crushed to death by a falling mast. Pedro Fuentes was buried off the coast of Africa in full Spanish pomp and circumstance. Although his mother and 11 siblings still lived on the Canary Islands, Fuentes opted to stay on board to become a seaman, like his father before him. Although his adoptive father, Don Raul Mediavilla, initially scoffed at him, he soon taught the young but serious Fuentes the tricks of the trade. Fuentes joined a cargo sailing company in Cuba and has lived there ever since, marrying Dolores Perez in 1922 (she died in 1990) and raising four daughters.