Cruise leads to sudden adventure
By Steve Vaughan | The Virginia Gazette January 3, 2009 WILLIAMSBURG - When Bert and Gladys Aaron signed on for a cruise from Rome to Singapore, they wound up in the middle of “Terry and the Pirates.”
“We didn’t book the cruise as an adventure cruise, but it turned into one,” the 87-year-old Aaron said during an interview Wednesday at the couple’s home in Kingsmill.
The cruise ship Nautica, operated by Oceania, was attacked and pursued by pirates Nov. 30 in the Gulf of Aden. The zone has been a hotbed of piracy, with the modern-day buccaneers operating primarily out of Somalia.
The Nautica was operating in the 10-mile-wide security zone between Yemen and Somalia, about 35 miles off the coast of Yemen and 135 miles from Somalia.
Aaron said the Nautica was passing a fishing fleet when two skiffs veered away from the fleet and began approaching at a high rate of speed. Alarmed by the deviation, the crew of the Nautica put the ship at full speed and outran the pirates.
Aaron said the pirates were firing on the cruise ship with small arms. He heard later that they fired about eight shots.
He was alarmed by the attack. “I’m not 40 years old anymore,” he said.
Although commercial shipping is prohibited from carrying weaponry by international naval treaties, Aaron said the Nautica did have means of defense.
“They had an audio blaster, which is supposed to be devastating at close range,” he said. “They also deployed high-pressure fire hoses.”
Those would have been used to prevent the pirates boarding the ship, which is no easy task as the most accessible deck of the cruise ship is multiple stories above the water line.
The passengers were ordered off the decks and into their staterooms until the all-clear was sounded, about five minutes later. Aaron said the ship took on extra security in Egypt.
Although the Somali pirates typically operate from large “mother ships,” Aaron didn’t see one. He did hear that a naval helicopter was on the scene shortly after the attempted attack and that a warship was nearby.
During 2008 there were 111 attacks in the Gulf of Aden. The pirates collected about $150 million in ransom for the captured ships and are still holding 11 ships and 200 crew members. The pirates made their biggest score in November when they captured a Saudi Arabian oil tanker carrying $100 million worth of oil.
The rampant piracy has puzzled civilians who can’t fathom why small ships can overtake big ones. The Nautica was unique for simply outrunning the pirates at some 22 knots.
To fight back, several navies have stepped up patrols. “The Indian navy is there, the Chinese navy, the U.S. Navy,” Aaron said. The Indian navy recently sank a suspected pirate mothership and captured 21 alleged pirates. On Thursday, the French navy captured two pirate ships and eight pirates.
Cruise leads to sudden adventure -- VAGazette.com