I sit at my desk as we make our way towards Muscat, Oman where we arrive later today.  Having departed Mumbai and cleared the buoyed channel, we increased speed to make our ETA and to reach a suitable speed for crossing the High Risk Area.  

This is part of the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea designated as an area where ‘pirate’ attacks used to be prevalent, back in the ‘bad old days’.  Fortunately, due to the presence of warships from various nations and some military action on the offenders, such attacks have decreased enormously. Nevertheless, only last week a small coastal tanker was hijacked, only to be released 4 days later.  

There are Best Management Practices’ to be followed and precautions taken by individual vessels.  I do the same as I have done since 2102, when I first started Grand World Voyages on the “Amsterdam”; razor-wire slung overside, water-cannon rigged and Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs)) mounted and ready.  We carried out a drill for guests and crew, the day after leaving Mumbai, so that all are aware of what to do.

We report our position every 6 hours to the Military and this morning, we have sighted 2 warships in our vicinity, always giving me a ‘warm, fuzzy’ feeling 🙂 .  

From Oman, we continue in the HRA until well north in the Red Sea, so we have a few days of it yet.  I mentioned in my last post from Mumbai that Karen was ashore and she had taken her camera; pleasingly she had quite a few and I post a selection including by now regular, time-lapse of our departure.

 

🙂