EUROPA’S UNEXPECTED VOYAGE
The circumstances were almost routine. In every southern hemisphere summer since 2000, Europa has undertaken several such voyages – typically five each season and with up to 55 people on board, most of whom are charter guests. To keep on schedule towards the end of this voyage Europa had to motor quite a bit of the way across Drake Passage as it was upwind. “We always plan a little sail-by off Cape Horn at the end of those voyages,” Eric Kesteloo, Europa’s captain since 2006, told me, “and then we have the westerlies for the last day’s sailing. That all went well.” But as she entered the Beagle Channel the crew heard some news on the VHF radio which was to fundamentally change Europa’s plans – immediately and for the foreseeable future.
At the beginning of that voyage Covid-19 had been causing concerns, although it was not yet clear how serious it would become. Certain precautions had been taken – guests filling in a form to confirm they hadn’t recently been to China, for instance – but made her way up the Beagle Channel was that Puerto Williams had been closed, and when they arrived at their home port of Ushuaia about four hours later, they found that they were only just in time: another six hours and the 48 guests would not have been able to disembark.
