Antarctica was the safest place on Earth—and she needed to escape it in the middle of a pandemic.

In early March, Shirel Kahane-Rapport was sailing in the frigid waters off Antarctica and had not yet heard the news. There was little contact with the outside world, and besides, she was busy tracking krill in Charlotte Bay. It turned out that they were not hard to find. Her echosounder device was picking up swarms of them in the waters below the Australis, the 75-foot sailboat hosting her expedition to the South Pole. One patch of krill was so large that it took 10 minutes to cross.

A concentration of krill is a good thing because it signals that whales might be feeding nearby. Whenever they would spot one, Kahane-Rapport and research partner Dave Cade would hop onto a Zodiac boat and approach. Using a 10-foot pole, they would stick tags to the whales’ backs.

The experience was thrilling and Kahane-Rapport was loving her time in the company of crewmembers who fast became friends. As a fourth-year doctoral student at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, she was relying on the results of this trip, which promised to provide critical data to support her research. Adding to the sense that this fieldwork was important was the presence of a professional film crew from Natural History New Zealand, a production company that paid for the voyage.

Then, on March 9, at the end of another day in Antarctica, it was Kahane-Rapport’s turn to log on to the internet for her daily allotment of five minutes. A text message from a lab mate was waiting for her: “Are you aware the whole world is burning [right now]? Or are you too busy squeezing whales.”

She had only a moment to take in the foreboding words. Kahane-Rapport wrote back: “WHAT! No, I am not. We have no service, just a once a day WiFi connection that’s like an on-off send messages. What’s going on!”

After a night’s sleep and another full day working on the boat, it was time to log on again. New messages received:

“Hmm let’s see coronavirus is exploding, global stock markets are collapsing, everyone is panicking.

“Stanford and UCSC have moved to online only.

“Italy (the entire country) is quarantined. No one is allowed in or out.”

The researchers kept working, sailing on to Wilhelmina Bay to look for more whales. But every 24 hours, the volume of ominous messages increased, adding information about the coronavirus pandemic bit by bit.

After the Australis, Kahane-Rapport and Cade were scheduled to link up with a cruise ship, joining as visiting scientists. It was supposed to be their ticket back to land. But then a message came in, saying that plan was canceled. They were stuck. That’s when the fear began.

“I realized something very terrible was happening,” she says. “I was nervous about what the world would look like.”

At first, Kahane-Rapport and Cade considered sheltering in the place on the boat. Where could be safer than Antarctica during a pandemic?  But supplies would soon run out and it would be difficult to get support. The two researchers decided to seek a way back to land. 

They sent out calls for help. Fortunately, at least one other boat was still in Antarctica. It was an official vessel of the United States Antarctic Program, the Laurence M. Gould. The Antarctic rendezvous between the two vessels was set for 1-3am somewhere in the Gerlache Strait.

On the way there, Captain Ben of the Australis was monitoring communications, waiting for the Gould to send precise coordinates. But the satellite signal cut off. The vessel veered through the darkness toward the Gould’s last known location. In a stroke of luck—and not the last—the radio system finally succeeded in locating the other boat. 

With the two Stanford scientists aboard, the Gould sailed north, navigating across the notoriously turbulent Drake Passage toward Chile, where the next sign of coronavirus trouble appeared. The word from authorities at the port of Punta Arena was the ship might not be allowed to dock. Chile eventually granted the seafarers permission to dock, and officials escorted them to the Punta Arena airport. On the way, Kahane-Rapport was told that local residents had been rioting and burning tires. They reportedly tried to blockade the port to prevent foreign ships from unloading foreigners who they feared might spread the virus.

On a plane that reeked of hand sanitizer, Kahane-Rapport flew to Santiago. Eventually, she made it to Toronto, where she is now sheltering with family. Growing up in that city had prepared her for the chill of the Antarctic. Nothing could have prepared her for finding herself there during a pandemic.