The frigate Santa María returns to Rota after five months of deployment in Operation Atalanta in Indian Ocean waters (Photo Ministry of Defence)

The frigate Santa María has returned to its base in the province of Cadiz, after spending five months operating the waters of the Horn of Africa.

Two hundred family members have received the frigate's strength at the dock, maintaining the COVID prevention measures at all times.

The main objective of the European Union mission that they have developed during these months is not only the fight against piracy in Indian waters off the coast of Somalia, but also the protection of World Food Programme (WFP) vessels as well as other vulnerable vessels and ensuring the safety of maritime traffic in the area.

The Holy Mary is the first Navy ship to complete a deployment of this nature and duration during the pandemic. After a period of preparation and enlistment carried out under demanding conditions, due to the restrictions imposed by the State of Alarm decreed in March, the Holy Mary was made to the sea from the Naval Base of Rota on June 5.

On Friday, 30 October, it will be the first time, for the vast majority of the crew, that they can go down to the ground after almost 150 days without landing of the ship and that, due to the COVID measures for the protection of the personnel embarkated, they have not been allowed to leave during the logistic scales of the ship in the different ports.

During the operation, the frigate Santa María has sailed more than 25,000 miles, the equivalent of more than one round the world and has visited many ports, such as Djibouti, Mombasa (Kenya), Salalah (Oman) or Duqm (Oman).

During the various patrols, the frigate has carried out a large number of control and surveillance missions on the Somali coast, thanks to the use of the Scan Eagle drone and its AB-212 helicopter, aboard the mission, belonging to the Eleventh and Third Air Flotilla Squad, respectively.

In addition to the regular monitoring missions of the area of operations, the Holy Mary rescued in Somali waters and subsequently moved to the port of Bossaso, in harsh conditions of sea, to the tugboat "Alaa" last July and carried out health care to the gas vessel 'Al-Thakhira', in the waters of the IRTC (International Recognized Transit Corridor) of the Gulf of Aden, with a patient in a coma.

The frigate Santa Maria bears its name in honor of the nao Santa Maria, on which Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, America, on October 12, 1492. With this same name there were three other ships in the Spanish Navy: a Filipino built in Santander in 1590; a 34-canyons frigate, built in Ferrol in 1785 and that shipwrecked in the Philippines in 1797 and a 4-canyons urn, built in the Carraca in 1850 and dedicated to the transport of war and as a school of Marine Guards.