Pirates? What Pirates?...
The day of reckoning is fast approaching. We will soon be in the Gulf of Aden and heading up into the Red Sea past all those nasty countries, Djibouti, Somalia, and the Sudan.
The good news is that our balcony opens on the port, [left] side so we can keep our eyes out for good pirate shots with my video camera. [That is a joke Moe!]You may or may not recall an incident a few months ago when a small cruise ship was attempted to be taken over and was in any event shot at with self-propelled grenades. We will soon be in those exact waters. There are hundreds of ships that pass up and down there safely every week. I have no concern at all, it is however, interesting to be in these waters.
There was a brief news announcement on CNN the other day about a ship, a tanker I believe, that either was taken or attempted to be taken over by two pirate boats off the Somalia coast. Apparently two US Navy jets buzzed the boats and were shot at by the occupants [pirates?]. The navy responded and sunk one and I have no idea what happened to the other. Attempts to get further information have been futile. I did go on-line and with Fox News but I was pushed for time and I got a somewhat ambiguous tale.
Earlier this morning there was a silly story told by someone, who has a habit of spreading alarming stories of all matter, that we were chased by pirates one night. The next few days will at least be interesting from a rumour point of view.
Also is the news that we may not be visiting Libya because of some silly diplomatic matter between the US and the Libyan Government. The ship has indicated that they are still waiting for the definitive answer. Unfortunately there are a fair number of paranoid people on board who now, don't want to go to Libya, even if we could because "if they don't want us, I don't want them!". Pity. The proposed alternative ports are interesting though. Malta, Kusadasi in Turkey, [this enables us to get to Ephesus again], and unfortunately polluted Athens. Not a bad trade off, but we were looking forward to the tours in Libya.
I am not sure if I mentioned that there have been extra "security" people on board since Cape Town. There job is to look out, day and night, on deck for suspicious activity.
Personally I felt better on P & O ships that had Gurkhas on deck when in pirate waters. There are many pirate incidents throughout the world every year. Until the incident a few months ago, to my knowledge there were no attempts on cruise ships. Mostly involved are coastal ships and private vessels that are easy pickings for armed thugs. Unfortunately at this time Somalia is in a state of anarchy, without government.
Thank you US Armed forces for being the policemen in such places. I suppose this is motivated by the amount of oil that goes through these waters to quench the thirst of those big SUV's so many of us have.
Next scheduled stop, Alexandria, Egypt. However we have a daylight transit of the Suez Canal on March 25th.
Our hot weather may come to an abrupt change in the next week as we head north.
posted by Doug and Fellette @ 6:04 AM
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