Arrgh! There do be Pirates Here!
Not the place for me! Seems every day I read about another Pirate story.
The Gulf of Aden must be passed in order to get to the Mediterranean Sea. This route is taken in order to avoid going around the Cape of Good Hope located in South Africa. Sailors dislike going around the Cape of Good Hope because of poor weather and difficult seas. The Red sea is connected to the Mediterranean Sea via canals and locks in Egypt. This route normally would be ideal to get into the Mediterranean Sea, if it were not for the pirate activity.
Most of the pirate activity involves a few pirates trying to take cargo ships and tankers. These ships would bring a hefty ransom from the companies that own them. Though the logic of trying to hid a 35,000 ton ship seems like a difficult task for a pirate… and yet they get away with it some times. Although attacks happen from time to time, it is rare that the smaller cruisers and yachts get attacked because they do not carry enough items of worth and can not gain a ransom for the pirates.
Example of the Cruising Sailboats in this story.
One story I heard about dealt with a couple of cruising yachts that were trying to get through the Gulf of Aden and got attacked. The plan was to sail at night with their lights off. Ron and His wife in one boat and Larry and his wife in the other boat got delayed by a third boat. The plan of traveling at night was out the window (port hole as it were) as they tried to make up for lost time and sailed through during day light hours. Things were fine until a couple of fishing canoes came within a rocks throw of the boats. They could tell that they were not fisherman because they had no fishing gear on the canoes. The canoes left
and a couple of hours later two motor boats came to get the cruisers. The motor boats headed in and started firing at the cruisers with machine guns. The cruisers took cover in their boat. Larry got mad at being shot at and rammed one of the boats as they came in close and sank them. Ron started shooting at the Pirates in the other boat with his shot gun. The motor boat that Ron was shooting at turned on Larry’s boat (because they didn’t like getting shot at by Ron) and one of the pirates tried to climb in the back of Larry’s boat. Ron stopped the pirate by shooting him off of Larry’s boat with his shotgun. The rest of the pirates fled.
Needless to say unless you have a desire to get shot at by pirates you have to use some tactics (sail at night) to get through the Gulf of Aden or simply go the long way round. You could always take lessons from Rambo Rambo (Widescreen Edition)
Lord out.
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