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Pirate Alley: Rhumb Do, Rhumb Don’t
This week’s podcast is our 40th episode! It finds us caught up in fishing nets again, slap bang in the centre of pirate alley. In last week’s episode Lo Brust, the rally leader aboard his boat Mistral, had successfully thrown a line to Jean-Claud and Marlene aboard Anthea. Anthea is now being towed by Mistral. It didn’t take long for another two boats to run into trouble… as well as each other. Patience is a commodity that can run out. Hope you enjoy this week’s drama, and don’t forget we provide a direct download link if you don’t use iTunes.
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.
Mr Bond, I Presume?
My troubles started when I attempted to turn the engine off. I pressed the ‘off’ button and nothing happened, the engine continued to trundle away. “Relay switch”, I thought. I picked up instructions manuals, reference books, and anything else that might offer a solution. In the end I bottled it and called John on the VHF.
So When Are We Going To Go Somewhere?
We bought Esper at the end of 2004 and now it’s February 2009. In that time all we’ve done is sailed from Bodrum to Fethiye. Big deal. Weren’t we supposed to be going round the world? Anyone else out there get similar remarks from armchair sailors and landlubbers? I heard that a lot on my last visit home to the UK and I bet Jamie’s hearing it right now. Funny how it’s only people without a boat who make these remarks… What non boat dwellers don’t understand is how long everything takes. Well, for those people who wonder what we ‘do all day’ and why we haven’t got very far, here are a few things to think about: