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EXCLUSIVE: Navy Trades Secrets With FTB About Piracy
Exclusive! This is a classified recording between the Royal Navy and followtheboat about anti-piracy tactics. Much of this conversation is secret and for the safety of future sailors making the same passage we are obliged to not broadcast any strategy undertaken by the British Royal Navy and the Vasco Da Gama rally. What we can broadcast, however, is a very interesting discussion between two senior Naval officers and the skippers and owners of private sail boats on the rally. The British Navy is one of over 60 different countries operating in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean in the fight against piracy. If you know little about the piracy situation or what we as boat owners have to go through when considering our route through this dangerous stretch of water then you will find this very interesting.
Pirate Alley: Relax, It’s The Canadians!
With just one more day to go before our arrival in Salalah we’re under the impression that it is almost all over. The group relaxes in the dead calm seas, but there’s nothing like the sight of a warship on the horizon to excite these intrepid sailors. It’s time we pulled together to show these naval chaps exactly how coordinated we really can be!
Pirate Alley: Pirate Skiffs & NATO Warships
We only spent two nights in Mukala but it was enough to relax, refuel and flirt with the local fishermen… and that was just Millie. We depart and start off with a positive attitude. It is soon erroded as we catch again and again communication between Nato warships and commercial vessels who have spotted suspicious fishing skiffs in the vicinity.
Pirate Alley: Towing The Line
The next part of our Pirate Alley excursion is quite unbelievable as we encounter three major problems within the same night! We’ve split the podcasts up and in the next couple of episodes we have a collision, more fishing net problems and you’ll also hear how one boat starts taking in water. Today’s episode, however, deals with the minor issue of a boat breaking down in the middle of nowhere!
Pirate Alley: Birthday Close Encounters
Pirate Alley: Jamie’s 40th birthday. No partying for him though as we contend with disfunctional alternators and two suspicious fishing dows. Could they be pirates? And if so, what chance do we have of reinforcing our safty in numbers strategy if Esper’s group is all over the place?
Pirate Alley: Night Diving
The hilarious departure from Port Aden raises our spirits as we begin our journey into Pirate Alley. Within two hours disaster strikes as one of the boats runs into a fishing net. In the dark.
This collective of boats isn’t called a rally for nothing. Listen to the boats rallying together to get us through the first of many hurdles lying ahead
Dancing Our Way Out Of Yemen
The day before we left Aden we were invited to another leaving do put on by Colonel Mohammed the Coast guard-cum-port police-cum-general bigwig.
We were thrilled to find that they had invited a group of ten young fishermen who were dancing to a live band, performing traditional dance. They then invited the rally participants to join them and Jamie couldn’t resist busting out his moves. One of the coastguards very kindly gave us a video clip of this momentous ocassion, telling us that this was the first and only time an English man has danced in routine with Yemeni fishermen! You can see the clip on the website.
After the dance we polled some of the rally participants about their thoughts on the next leg of the trip, which takes us through Pirate Alley.
In this podcast we also got to chat to a Yemeni woman, covered head to foot in black with just her eyes visible. Her English is excellent and makes for a great little interview.
Pirate Alley: Putting It In Perspective
Pirate Alley. Two words that strike fear into the armchair sailor, apprehension into those who actually sail it, and have the effect of filling my pants out of shear fear when that phrase is uttered. In this preamble I attempt to put some of these thoughts into context.