AARRRRR! (And it's not even the right day!)

Poststructural Pub
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Pirates Attack Cruise Ship Off Somalia

November 05, 2005 12:56 PM EST
MIAMI - Pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade and machine guns Saturday in an attack on a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast, the vessel’s owners said.

Two armed boats approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the coast of Somalia and fired as the boats’ occupants attempted to get onboard, said Bruce Good, a spokesman for Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp.

The crew initiated a trained response and avoided being boarded, Good said. The ship outran them and changed its course.

“> Our suspicion at this time is that the motive was theft> ,” Good said.

One member of the 161-person crew was slightly injured before the attackers were repelled, according to a London-based Seabourn Cruises spokesman.

Press Association, the British news agency, said passengers awoke to the sound of gunfire as two 25-foot inflatable boats approached the liner. The injured crew member was reportedly hit by flying debris.

The vessel’s 151 passengers, mostly Americans with some Australians and Europeans, were gathered in a lounge for their safety, Good said. None were injured.

The Spirit had been bound for Mombasa, Kenya, at the end of a 16-day voyage from Alexandria, Egypt. It was expected to reach the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean on Monday, and then continue on its previous schedule to Singapore, company officials said.

The 10,000-ton cruise ship, registered in the Bahamas, sustained minor damage, Good said. “They took some fire, but it’s safe to sail,” he said.

Piracy along the Somalia coast is common - several ships a month are attacked or hijacked, with valuables stolen and crews held for ransom.

Somalia’s 1,880-mile coastline is Africa’s longest, and the country has had no effective central government since opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. They then turned on each other, transforming this nation of 7 million into a patchwork of battling fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias.

Ooooo! I see a job opportunity in this . . . riding shotgun on cruise ships!

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“The crew initiated a trained response and avoided being boarded, Good said. The ship outran them and changed its course.”

Well, this sort of freaks me out! They are trained to avoid being boarded by pirates? In this day and age? I had no idea. Arrrrrr!

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I had no idea, either! Fascinating, isn’t it?

Herded the passengers into a lounge for their own safety, my foot! They did it to keep them from seeing the cannon hidden in some of those lifeboats! Harrrrr!

The best of this is . . . remember Miss Skimpy-Skirts? Her rich boyfriend is taking her on a(nother) > cruise > soon . . . this time over THERE! . . . I’ve already emailed the link to myself . . . > MUST SHARE!!! > I’m going to have such fun tomorrow! > AAAARRRRR HARRR HARRRRR! > >

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I had understood there was still a lot of piracy around Florida, with boats being taken for the drug-running trade.

djm

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Heh. There is a penthouse on top of my building, kind of partly under which I live, and which has a clear view over the barrier islands to the horizon on the Gulf, that has had a sucession of criminals living in it, from mbstrs to mail-order preachers. In between, there were some young men–looked like extras in Grease–who were running drugs.

They had this big Cigarette boat in the marina. In the middle of the night, they’d all leap up and rush out–I am not making this up–drive their Mercedeses and Porsches around the corner to the marina, jump in the boat, and roar off across the bay and out through a pass through two of the barrier islands. They’d come roaring back a bit later to clatter around for a while with a hammer, rather like they were pulling up floor boards. Or paneling. Or something.

And, mind you, they’d do all this while wearing their mobster clothes! It wasn’t like they’d change into spiffy sailing outfits.

They did this for a while–everyone pretended not to notice a thing–and then there was a big bust and they were all sent off to jail. But, for several years while the place was vacant, people showed up in the middle of the night to pull up floor boards. And right before it was sold, they came one night and worked on the floor nearly all night long. Guess they wanted it to look nice for the new owners.

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Pirates are still prowling the seas. One doesn’t hear much about them as they usually do not go after the big stuff.

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Jesus, I live in Kansas, and I know that Somalia is rife with pirates. It’s absolutely unconscionable that the corporate wonks at the cruise line seem to have missed that little point. What were they doing there? Somalia isn’t a romantic tropical tourist destination.

The International Maritime Bureau maintains records of pirate attacks, and Somalia has been the most frequently pirated hot spot as of late. The IMB recommends staying away from the coast unless making a port of call there.

http://www.icc-ccs.org/main/news.

http://www.icc-ccs.org/main/news.php?newsid=53

I get my piracy updates thrugh here, although right now they are a little bit behind – http://www.piratesahoy.net/content/view/675/

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Arrrrrrr! Shiver me timbers!

Well, the obviously weren’t very good pirates. They didn’t even get any booty.

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You don’t say! :laughing:
And to think I’ve been trusting my boat to those silly pirates who said they were just going to borrow it for the weekend!

I think I’d better go find my boat… :smiley:

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I wonder if it might have been the plundering faction of my family. I should go find out. :smiley:

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Lots of pirates on the Great Salt Lake these days?

At least Brian Lee can supply them with thong… er “eye pataches”!

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :smiley:

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And another twist: I’m hearing rumors of ship-board drug labs on the Canadian coast.

Criminal intent + toxic chemicals + fishies = fun!

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Aye, they sail about the Great Salty Sea-like Lake and plunder the salt factories and when they’ve nothing better to do, they go to church :stuck_out_tongue:

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A pirate walks into a bar and he has a ship’s wheel sticking out of the front of his trousers. The bartender says to the pirate, “Hey, did you know that you have a ship’s wheel sticking out of your trousers?” The pirate replies, “AAARRRGH! It’s driving me nuts.”


Tom

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… and sing in the choir. :smiley:

djm

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A pirate walk into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder, and the bartender asks “Where did you get that?”

“Barbados,” answers the parrot.

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During the exodus of (mostly) ethnic Chinese (AKA boat people) from Vietnam in the late '80s, quite a few were attacked by Thai “pirates”.

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Versus "Hip"pirates? :boggle:

djm

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Being a pirate used to could get you made governor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgan

Funny how little things change, ain’t it?