The Spanish Warship "Galicia" has reached the half way point in her deployment with the European Union’s counter piracy operation off the coast of Somalia. Galicia took over from Dutch warship, HNLS “Johan De Witt”, as the Operation Atalanta flagship on 6 May 2015.

Since then, the Spanish Warship “Galicia” has sailed over 15.000 nautical miles and conducted counter-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden, Somali Basin and all along the coast of Somalia. They have almost performed 380 hours of flight operations since the beginning of the Operation with their two helicopters and their four Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles.

With only 15% of the days in harbor, the Spanish Warship “Galicia” has visited the cities of Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, Port Victoria in the archipelago of Seychelles, Djibouti and Salalah in the Emirate of Oman.

As a secondary task, ESPS “Galicia”, during her port visit to Seychelles and Tanzania, conducted some Maritime Capacity Building exercises with the navies and the different maritime agencies of Seychelles and Tanzania, trying to help them to develop their own capacities to react in the future from any important issue at sea.

To remain at sea for these long periods, ESPS “Galicia” has performed 5 replenishments at sea with other naval units from different task forces deployed in the Indian Ocean, so as to restock the ship with fuel.

The ESPS “Galicia” count on board with a medical ROLE-2 that provides the force flow the capacity to react to any urgency at sea. She will continue patrolling the entire Somali coastline, the Gulf of Aden, and the Somali Basin to protect and reassure all the World Food Program, AMISOM and any vulnerable ship sailing off the Somali coast.

ESPS “Galicia” will return to her homeport of Rota, in the southwest of Spain, at the end of October 2015.