by the ship being ordered to co-ordinate a search and rescue operation for a woman lost overboard from a yacht; the search was called off at sunset without finding her. 21–22 January was spent in Road Town, Tortola and then hydrographic surveys began, anchoring overnight 22/23 January off Beef Island, before setting up the boat camp and trisponder station on Guana Island and "bottoming" overnight. Hydrographic surveys continued in the BVI, including a detached boat camp in West Anegada (see ), until completion on 8 February, anchoring that night in Cane Garden Bay, Tortola (see ). A visit was made to St. John's, on the island of Antigua, from 9–13 February, before passage east across the Atlantic Ocean. 21–22 February was spent surveying the Atlantic Seamount, southwest of the Azores, completing with a visit to Ponta Delgada, the island's capital, on 25–26 February. At anchor off Swanage, and later in Spithead on 3 March, she returned to Portsmouth Naval Base on 4 March 1982. Hospital ship: The Falklands War of 1982 March was spent in the naval base, the ship undergoing assisted maintenance and the ship's company taking leave. The ship's programme for more surveys off the west coast of Scotland in the summer of 1982 was changed by Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands in April 1982. HMS Hydra was converted in Portsmouth Naval Base for service as a hospital ship – a replenishment at sea position was fitted, the yellow funnel painted white and red crosses painted prominently, and the starboard engine replaced – and she sailed on 24 April 1982, in company with her sister-ship (see photo), with additional medical staff, for the South Atlantic. A BBC News report on that day described the ship as "... converted to a casualty ferry ... [whose] job will be to ferry wounded troops from the Falklands' beachhead to the hospital ship Uganda; at this stage it was not at all certain quite how the ship would be used. Her journey south took four weeks, crossing the line on 6 May (although the traditional ceremony was held the previous day, for operational reasons). She was a short time in the anchorage off Ascension Island for replenishment on 8 May. She was at position on 15 May and on 18 May. HMS Hydra joined sister ship HMS Hecla and SS Uganda, in the "Red Cross Box" (), about north of Falkland