Spain operates two bases in Antarctica, on Livingston Island and Deception Island in the South Shetland Islands. They are only manned during the summer months and are not equipped to house research teams through the winter. So when the news of a global pandemic came, the scientists stationed at those bases had to plan for a fast escape, lest all borders be closed to them. There was no coronavirus in Antarctica, but being stranded for months with no supplies was not a good option.
Ushuaia, a port in southern Argentina, is a common transit point for Antarctic researchers, but the country was also thinking of closing its own borders. Fearing the worst, the Spanish authorities decided to send Hespérides, a Spanish Navy–operated scientific research vessel docked in Chile, to Antarctica and get the staff from both bases to Argentina before it was too late. If they would be trapped, better there than across Drake Passage.
The date for the ship’s arrival kept being pushed up—from March 19 to March 16. Then, on March 12, the bases found out it would arrive in just two days. Normally, staff would have a week to shut everything down and shield all the scientific equipment and living quarters from the harsh Antarctic winter. This time, they had a single day. González Álvarez and her colleagues ran around Deception’s volcanic cauldron, retrieving their seismic monitoring equipment in violent wind. Others scrambled to pack up not just their own equipment, but all their food, medicine, and trash, too.
That single day was still not fast enough, as several South American countries closed their borders before the Hespérides arrived. While the passengers were virus-free, they couldn't go ashore. Read the story of the convoluted way the Spanish researchers found their way home to a changed world at Atlas Obscura.
(Image: courtesy of Jordi Felipe Álvarez)