We're approaching the southern end of the Red Sea. During the night, we've seen a lot of ships, some of which have looked decidedly dubious, including one with a speedboat mounted ominously from davits at its stern. Whilst a lot of the pirate activity in this neck of the woods comes from opportunist fishermen out to make a bit on the side when richer pickings present themselves, the professionals use speedboats, and quite often operate in packs. Those are the ones we have to keep our eyes peeled for.
It's 9 o'clock in the morning, and we've entered Devil's Gate, the point where the Red Sea narrows to around 20 miles across before it opens out into the Arabian Sea. To our left is Yemen, to our right, Eritrea. This is where most of the reported pirate activity happens - shallow waters in a narrow channel, where the victims, including large cargo ships, have nowhere to go.
A Singapore registered container ship comes up behind us and overtakes. We're in bumpy head seas at the moment, and Alan Priddy tries his usual ploy of nipping round behind to gain some shelter in the ship's wash. He tries to call them up on the radio, but they don't respond.
"They're not looking happy, Al", says Steve, noticing a flurry of activity on the ship's bridge. We're in the heart of pirate country, and it's common practice for ships not to respond to any radio calls, particularly from small speedboats like us getting uncomfortably close.
Alan decides to draw abreast of the ship so they can get a clearer look at the logos along our side. Before we know it, he's returning our call. "What are your intentions? Over."
Alan explains that we're a round-the-world powerboat, and it transpires the ship, the Kota Major, is also heading for Aden. So we can take shelter behind her, providing we can keep up.
As we continue in her wake, we spot a speedboat off our starboard bow, around a mile off. These are most definitely not pleasureboating waters, and there can be only one assumption as to what it must be. Fortunately for us, he's having much bigger problems than us in these head seas, and whilst it's almost unbearably uncomfortable tail-gating the Kota Major, we're making 19 knots.
So in the space of around twenty minutes, we've been mistaken for pirates, and we've seen them (probably) ourselves. Fortunately we've shown what could well have been the real thing a clean pair of heels.
The problem now is that we can't keep up with the Kota Major. There's so much air in the water, our prop isn't biting efficiently - a phenomenon called cavitation. We can't get the boat to perform, and we're injuring ourselves in the process. Reluctantly we fall back to a more comfortable speed of around 10 knots. Bang goes our chance of arriving in Aden today - unless the weather changes again.
Next stop: Aden, Yemen
ETA: Sunday, maybe
Clive Tully
Copyright Clive Tully ©2002
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