Final night in pirate alley

Another great day sailing - with spinnakers set and some close action between Kika and Antares.

Antares about to overtake Kika

Kika from Antares

I even caught a couple of small tuna; each giving two decent meals. They've been marinating in the fridge all day.
I've never used the spinnaker/cruising chute so much before. The boat seems so much more stable with spinnaker compared with goose-winging with main and genoa. Seems there's always more to learn...

Unless something catastrophic occurs we'll reach Aden tomorrow and tonight will be our final night in pirate alley. Perhaps a good opportunity to reflect.

Large ship piracy is clearly different from yacht piracy, with yacht piracy more armed robbery than hostage taking. Besides the actual piracy an almost larger problem seems to be the accompanying paranoia. This leads to a complete break-down in trust between ships in the Gulf and results in the danger of large ships moving unlit at night and being too frightened to respond to radio calls.

The literature implies that the pirates use fishing boats making the pirates initially indistinguishable from fishermen. Given some of the over-inquisitive fishermen whose motive remains unclear perhaps some of the reported incidents could have been opportunistic fishermen trying to make a quick buck - however this could be my own paranoia affecting me here. I certainly wouldn't like to sail these waters without other boats around, it's been more eventful than I expected and I think we've all felt reassured by the presence of others in our little convoy.

Position @ 12:00 (GMT+3), 05/03/2009: N13deg 26' E047deg04'
Distance to Aden: 128
Daily run: 122
Engine hours: 0