On May 14th, after a 150 days at sea and over 5,000 miles, Europa finally made it back home from her journey all the way to Mexico and back! For days we had to stand by patiently and wait for her to round South Point to be in the lee of the Big Island for a safe recovery. When this would occur was all up to currents and sea state, as her speeds fluctuated between under a knot to over 2.5 knots as she approached. Finally at midnight on April 13th, Europa rounded South Point. Early morning calls were made and crew rallied to trailer the boat to Honokohau Harbor. We ran 50 miles in 2 hours to south of Miloli’i. The first 40 miles were pretty mellow, but the last 10 miles, the seas got a bit rougher. By the time we reached Europa, who was about 6 miles offshore, we had wind gust of over 22 knots and swells up to 4 feet. However, the recovery went very well, and she looked GREAT! The whole recovery mission was over 100 miles round trip, hard on the crew, but nothing compared to what Europa had just gone accomplished!
Map of the Big Island. Green dots are Europa as she rounded South Point. Purple dots are of the May Maru as she traveled from Honokohau Harbor south to meet Europa. Purple and green are of Europa on the May Maru heading back to Honokohau Harbor.
What a Site For Sore Eyes! Europa after her 150 day journey! We are so pleased to have her back home safe and sound!
As expected, she had a few barnacles.
The copper housing for the hydrophone looked pretty clean.
She also had some unusual marks on two wings… possibly teeth rakes from some critter.
Of note, unlike all the other missions Europa has done, she had zero plastics stowed away! Perhaps the currents at 18°N latitude.
We are busy downloading the audio files. Next is several months of data analysis and paper publication.