¿Nevegando a dos aguas?

Question

More on Spain during WW II. I find Franco and his history quite interesting. My father was in the U.S. Navy and stationed in Rota in the early 1960's, and his stories of the political climate are enlightening. But to the point, one woman uses the phrase "navegando a dos aguas", or "sailing in two seas" when she talks about Franco dealing with Hitler and Germany. At one point she says Franco had signed an agreement with Hitler that he would not let any newsreels produced by North American companies be shown in Spain, but he did, anyway.

Franco va a estar todo el rato navegando a dos aguas y, bueno, va a poder solventar esta pequeña deuda que tiene con Alemania y sí que va a proyectar aunque sea en menor medida reportajes hecho por la voz Movietone o por otras de las empresas norteamericanas que estaban afincadas en España.

Franco the whole time is going to be sailing in two seas and, well, he is going to be able to settle this little debt that he has to Germany and he is going to show, even if it's in a small way, reports made by Movietone or other North American businesses that were established in Spain.

That's longer than I intended, but I wanted to give the context. So, basically "navegar a dos aguas" means keeping your options open, or playing both sides against the middle?

Answer 1

Navegar a dos aguas... I don't know if it means the same as "Navegar en dos aguas"... it's like "watch everything from a safe point of view"

I think that's it. He was a wily character, and his actions probably saved Spain from two extremes, but at a great cost. - KevinB, Oct 28, 2010

I agree! Franco wants to please everyone. I think this is the more polite expression that I know in this respect. - cogumela, Oct 28, 2010

Answer 2

I always thought that it meant "straddling the fence".

Thanks for this, it's new for me! - cogumela, Oct 28, 2010

That's a good translation, too. - KevinB, Oct 28, 2010

Answer 3

I think the expression was a bit mixed up in the captions but the idea came through despite the prepositional change.

Navegar entre dos aguas is keeping your options open, or being able to play on both sides in a conflict, while a dos aguas is to keep waters apart, like in a techo a dos aguas. But you sail a vapor, a remo, a vela. Never a dos aguas.

So, navegar a dos aguas is an unfortunate variation. I think it´s better to say navegar entre dos aguas

Also, you have this wonderful guitar player who mixed classical and gipsy elements in one of his first albums, so he was ´sailing in two seas´

It wasn't a caption. She probably just misspoke. Another Paco de Lucía album I''ll have to buy. - KevinB, Oct 28, 2010

oh, you´ll go nuts with this one! A masterpiece ! - mediterrunio, Oct 28, 2010