“April 9th and 10th are sea days, with a lot of icebergs. On April 12th, right after breakfast, the captain makes an announcement on the speaker system, and we are told to come to the lounge. His voice is very serious; I think we have some kind of mechanical emergency. Instead, the captain and the expedition leader say that we had a passenger who got sick in the past few days, and our ship’s doctor has been working very hard. He hasn’t slept for forty-eight hours. They did everything they could, but, unfortunately, the passenger is deceased. Everyone gasps.
“The nearest harbor is about eight days back, in Ushuaia, and several days the other way, in Cape Town. We are literally in the middle of the South Atlantic, as far from land as possible. It’s really an unfortunate place to die. The only logical place to go is Tristan da Cunha, which is about two and a half days away. Everybody thinks this man had a heart attack, or some preëxisting condition. I go to the expedition leader and I say, ‘This is not the first time for you, is it?’ He shakes his head and says, ‘Oh, no, this happens regularly on these trips.’ They have an existing protocol. Nobody thought this was an infectious disease.
“A few days later, the man’s wife, M., a lovely Dutch lady, gave a speech to the passengers. She was emotional, her voice shaking, but composed. She said that her husband’s biggest dream was to see albatross, and he was so happy on South Georgia when he saw king-penguin colonies and albatross. She was very graceful. Basically, she told us that the best thing we all can do now for his memory is to keep going and enjoy all this wildlife that he lived for.
“The mood is sombre. Most people are very quiet. But the best cure is outside, on the decks, with the ocean and the wildlife and seabirds. We are in this beautiful landscape; if you look around, there’s no way anybody would guess there’s a dead man on the ship. I see a sooty albatross, which has a goofy smile—a pale-yellow line on its lower mandible that turns up. It’s hard to see it without also having a smile on your face. We watch a sunset, and I think, Well, I guess this is life, and at least he died doing what he loved.
“On April 13th, we see Tristan da Cunha at 7:06 A.M. It’s an island that appears straight out of the ocean—the top of a volcano. It’s spectacular: sheer cliffs, a lot of volcanic-lava-type rock. We see this little village on the skirt of the volcano. You can see the lava field from the most recent eruption.
“We can’t leave the body at Tristan da Cunha because it has no airport. We will have to take this man all the way to St. Helena—but first we have to get some paperwork. We are not allowed to dock at Tristan da Cunha, so we are just waiting outside for the islanders to come certify the situation. They keep saying, ‘We’re waiting for the seas to calm down.’ In the end they say, ‘We are going to come tomorrow morning,’ which disappoints people because we lose a day.
“I think they are a little too cautious. But, later, it makes sense to me, because I read the history of Tristan da Cunha. In the nineteenth century, every time a ship showed up, all the able men of the island would immediately go to trade something. In 1885, almost all the working men went to a ship and were never seen again. Some of the locals believed the ship took the men and enslaved them. Most likely, they just capsized and died, leaving behind an island of widows. They have this historic trauma.”
Photograph from Europa Press / AP
Ref: https://www.newyorker.com/news/as-told-to/a-scientists-close-call-with-hantavirus-aboard-the-mv-hondius
