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Plymouth-based Royal Navy ship delivers Covid jabs to South Georgia

LPhot Belinda Alker Vaccines handed over from sailor to scientistLPhot Belinda Alker
HMS Protector delivered the Covid vaccines to the British Antarctic Survey in South Georgia

Sailors from HMS Protector have delivered Covid vaccines to scientists working in South Georgia.

The island is the latest stop for the survey ship as it heads south for a summer of scientific research.

The crew of the Plymouth-based ship also held a memorial for Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.

He left Plymouth in September 1921 intending to map still uncharted coastal regions of the White Continent, but died during the expedition.

LPhot Belinda Alker Sailors at the service on the water sideLPhot Belinda Alker
The sailors wore woollen sweaters in keeping with early 20th Century polar explorers for the service to remember Shackleton's achievements

"It was a privilege to remember Sir Ernest Shackleton with HMS Protector's ship's company at his grave on South Georgia, nearly 100 years from his burial in March 1922," said the survey ship's chaplain, Mike Chatfield.

The memorial service took place after the ship had delivered the vaccines to the team at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

The ship also kept watch for illegal fishing activity on the journey from the Falklands because the waters around both islands are conservation areas.

HMS Protector berthed at the new jetty at King Edward Point which has been built to accommodate RRS Sir David Attenborough.

Its company also helped to survey the waters around the quay to improve seafaring charts used by BAS and visiting cruise liners.

HMS Protector will spend Christmas close to the Antarctic Peninsula.

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