The Pirates Of Somalia - Real Events!

Last night I watched "The pirates of Somalia" movie and it gave me an inspiration to write about my encounter with pirates when I was on-board a 200 meter long motor tanker.

About the movie

First of, The Pirates of Somalia is a movie based on a bestseller novel by Jay Bahadur. It follows his journey to Somalia, as it is his only way to become established and well known reporter and writer.

On his unusual journey he encounters some pirate leaders and shady businessman as he tries to unravel the true suffering of people of Somalia; lack of jobs, schools, health care, etc. (you get the point) Pirates do justify themselves by blaming Chinese fisherman for invading their waters and exploiting their fish. (before Chinese fisherman in Somali waters, they based their economy on export of tuna fish)

First encounter

My first encounter with pirates was when we were in Chittagong (Bangladesh) anchorage. We did have both day and night watches, with Bangladeshi unarmed guards helping us. I had two watches a day; 1200-1600 and 0000-0400 and there were about 4 of us in one watch (shift).

We were small talking on the deck when we heard a vessel approaching (you can't see them, as they turn off their lights) We immediately informed the bridge and 3rd officer went to wake up the captain. Few of us went astern to check if the vessel is there, and the scene that we found was frightening. There were four guys in the vessel and they tried to throw the grappling hook to the stern fence so they could climb up. (our ship was 60% full so we were approximately 8 meters high) We started to shout so we could try to scare them, and fortunately it worked. The most chilling thing about it all was that when they came in the vicinity of ships searching lights you could easily see the machetes they were holding.

After that I was even more alerted when patrolling the ship. Every noise was a potential "pirate". At last, 15 days at that anchorage passed and we headed west to Suez channel and Mediterranean sea.

Ship I was on with the barbed wire all around

First pirate zone

When approaching Sri Lanka we embarked 3 soldiers that were there to guard us when passing the red sea and all of the West African pirate zones. (there were two Sri-Lankan soldiers and their chief in charge, a South African man that seemed experienced enough to lead the operation) For the sake of insurance we put barbed wire fence all around the ship. (Pirates could easily cut it off, but as I said, insurance did want us to put it there)

When we entered the first pirate zone everything was very calm. Main rule was that no one should go outside the superstructure, even by day, so our job consisted of cleaning the interior of the ship for most of the time. We also had a plan in an event of a pirate attack; a citadel made on the first poop deck that was closed by all sides, and we also had a secret code that only crew members knew, in the case of someone being left out of the citadel and wanted to come in. Avoid conflict at all costs; that was the main rule!

After few days of navigating the calm pirate waters I was mostly interested in lives and jobs of three soldiers that were guarding us. I even found out for the first time what was behind the infamous RPG acronym. (Rocket Propelled Grenade) Sri-Lankan soldier actually told us that they are payed 800 US dollars a month for this dangerous job, and that it was more than enough to live a normal life in Sri Lanka. (He was serving the military as a volunteer until then) They even spoke about their history and war with Tamil Tigers, (Militant organization fighting for independent country of Tamil > Tamil nationalists) speaking of Sri Lanka as a new tourist destination since the peace treaty was signed with the "tigers". Just for the information the chief (South African fellow) was paid approximately ten thousand dollars per month.

Me and one of the Sri-Lankan soldiers

Second encounter - Second pirate zone

Before entering the second pirate zone we waited for few other ships to gather so we could continue our trip in convoys of five, and that's when problems began.
You could see shady vessels coming close to one of the ships in the convoy almost every half an hour. Everybody was alerted and waiting for something bad to happen, until it did.
Ship that was in front of us got what we all were afraid of. They came from two sides, and embarked the ship unbelievably easy, with no effort at all. Later on we found out that it was the only ship that didn't pay/have armed guards on board. The company wanted to save some money, and that turned out to be a terrible mistake. We sounded the alarm, every ship in the convoy did. After one hour of hassling they finally disembarked. As we were taught from speaking with the attacked ship on VHF line (Very high frequency telephony - used for near contact) there was nobody harmed, they took the money and some firefighting equipment. So a dangerous day turned out very well for everyone.

Sailing through pirate zones could be dangerous, or a walk in the park. It all depends on a day. It is really a Russian Roulette sailing in those waters.

The conclusion

To finish it off with a intriguing sentence the chief of the soldiers told us when we asked him why they don't get rid of the pirates? With a very calm voice, he answered: "But, we wouldn't have our jobs if we did that, would we?"

It gave me a simple answer on what is happening there; actually everybody is happy, the pirates, the army, the company and no one asks the sailors, we are just a number, just a simple, unimportant number.

Till the next story, stay safe! Peace and love.