Travel with Indigo

In all of my previous blogs I have attempted to affect a carefree jocular tone that I hoped would convey to you the tone of life aboard Indigo as we disported ourselves among the world’s fun spots. Here for the first time, and I dearly hope the last time, you will find the tone lacking the accustomed frivolity, just a bit tense, maybe irritated, at some moments uncompromising and angry. It conveys accurately the perspective from which I made preparations for what amounted to a potential fire fight with thugs bent on armed robbery and my frame of mind during our passage through the Gulf of Aden. I made a brief, unsuccessful effort to add levity but gave up when it seemed to be dishonest. I am sure you will understand the change. – Phil

In making preparations for our passage through the Gulf of Aden, I thought it might be wise to pay a visit to the US Embassy in Muscat, Oman. From its relevant personnel, I hoped to establish a contact in the Omani military chain-of-command whose help I could enlist in recruiting two armed security men to make the voyage with us. I also hoped to gain some insight into the tactics employed by pirates in attacking vessels. Alas at both of these I mostly failed.

With the help of a letter of introduction which former Senator Mel Martinez had provided more than three years earlier, I secured an appointment at the embassy, appeared there on the designated hour, was greeted by the vice consul, and shown to a small windowless conference room. There awaiting my arrival were the embassy’s head of security, its attaché for naval affairs, and its expert on the Oman military. In the indirect manner of government officials everywhere, they declined to introduce me to any Omani military leaders, and the feeble information they provided on pirate tactics I had already gleaned from the coalition task force. The US Postal Service would have been of more help.

The US embassy, by the way, sits on a fine waterfront site in the district where all diplomatic delegations to Oman are found. It is a particularly unattractive building whose design reflects the intention that it should be bombproof rather than that it should be handsome. But bombproof it surely is. According to the officials with whom I spoke, it could take a direct hit from a very large explosion without harm to any occupants.

On the same street, within a short walk of the US building, are the embassies of Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait and others. France easily wins the award for ugliest, Kuwait for handsomest, Britain for largest, Yemen for most in need of repair, US for most obviously bombproof. France also wins the category of closest to the bar at the Diplomat Club.

Back on Indigo, we were pleased to welcome on board our new captain, Steve Hubbard, and new stewardess, his wife, Gillian, both from Ontario. When we called them, they had been working for several years managing yacht refits at a yard in Italy and were eager to get back to sea. Both have a great deal of experience in all aspects of yachting and are affable professionals. Most importantly, neither of them was spooked at the prospect of traveling through pirate infested waters. We also welcomed on board our new chef, Evelyn, a cute young French Canadian lady from Quebec who was living in Ft. Lauderdale when we called upon her.

Captain Hubbard found and we hired two security guys to join us for our upcoming voyage, both from South Africa and both experienced in escorting vessels through these waters. John Mason is a 43-year old former infantry officer in the British Army and senior official with a major security firm that until recently had a considerable presence in Iraq, where he served for a number of years. Lloyd Bernard, age 28, is a former British Royal Marine with more vessel security experience than his age would suggest. Together they conducted a thorough and quite professional security audit of Indigo, examining our CCTV system, radio communications equipment, exterior steel and aluminum structure and its vulnerability to small arms fire, fire suppression systems, and much more. They developed a written security plan for the voyage, acquainted the crew with its features, and drilled them in its finer details.

When Indigo departed from Ft. Lauderdale in March 2006, we had on board two AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifles, which is the civilian version of the standard fully automatic military M-16 in which I was trained during my army service, a twelve gauge pump action shotgun, a Glock 9mm automatic pistol, and a barely sufficient supply of ammo for all. These I had purchased solely for the purpose of helping get us through the Gulf of Aden and had carried them on board in a hidden cache from the time we left Florida. I’m very glad I did. Without them, I’m not sure I would have taken the chance of confronting armed pirates.

John and Lloyd field stripped and reassembled the weapons and found that they were in perfect working order, which I knew from having done the same thing myself some time ago. They loaded the primary and extra magazines with ammo and stowed these, together with the ceramic plated body armor jackets I had purchased, in the sky lounge office on the bridge deck, where they also had a sleeping pad.

They drilled the crew, teaching them where they should muster when an alarm sounded and where they should go from there—into one of the forward crew cabins—and what they should take with them—the few items they would most desperately desire while sweating away several months in a Somali prison hut. They instructed the crew to lock the cabin door behind them and not to let anybody inside. This cabin was to serve as a last ditch citadel in the event we were boarded and taken over by pirates.

They also collected all our passports and wallets and hid them away. Of particular concern were mine and mate Bobby’s since the pirates have reportedly declared a vendetta against Americans after three Somali brigands were nicely dispatched by American snipers. It was suggested to us that should it come down to it we should in addressing the pirates adopt an accent that would mask our nationality.

I frankly regarded all of this as melodramatic nonsense and said so. It had within it the suggestion that we would in some manner allow pirates to board and takeover my yacht. We seemed to be practicing the finer details of losing. I felt strongly that I needed to establish with the crew and with the security team my firm rejection of this apparently defeatist attitude and instead insist on an aggressive approach. We were here not to practice how to lose but how to win.

One man, whose name will go unsaid, told me that in defending ourselves against armed and dangerous pirates we must adhere to principles of international law or run the risk of being sued! Never mind that he had not the slightest inkling of just what those principles demanded of us or in what circumstances they might apply. Here was a man paralyzed by a defeatist, quibbling mentality that had no place on my boat. What was called for was not the mindset of a government official preparing to go into a department meeting but the mindset of the warrior about to go into battle. I believe my response was something along the lines of “Fuck you and your international law, just shoot the bastards and we’ll worry about the rest later.” It may be worth noting that I was, and remain, the only certified redneck on board. Just in case you were wondering.

I told them that I would not consent to hiding out in a citadel while my vessel and crew, to say nothing of my beloved self, were under attack by thugs. I strongly insisted that I would be on the bridge when there was any action and that under no circumstances were they to allow any pirates to invade my yacht, and if they had qualms about shooting the sons of bitches, I did not and would shoot them myself if need be.

I felt it was vital to make it clear to all that there would be no compromise, no negotiation, and no capitulation. I knew that up against pirates in small fiberglass skiffs, even armed with AK-47s and RPGs, we had distinct advantages, which I will describe in due course. All we needed was a firm resolve and to spot the attackers early.

In conducting my own security inspection, I noted that the two stairwells leading from the aft main deck down to the swim platform were open leaving a clear line of sight, and of course line of fire, down the port and starboard catwalks where we as defenders might be standing. To remedy this I had our engineer cover these openings with sheets of one third-inch steel plate secured in place.

From the embassy I did gather one bit of important information, which was that the pirates are all Muslim, and that when they captured that Saudi oil tanker which was so much in the news they got into a lot of trouble for attacking fellow Muslims and ultimately returned the ship and crew to their owners. With this information in mind, I had the crew purchase a full-sized official flag of Oman, which we would fly in place of our customary flag of the Marshall Islands, and also Arab head scarves for John and Lloyd. I already had an Omani white robe and pillbox hat in which I cut a fine figure, if you don’t mind my saying so. With these, we would at least suggest to pirates viewing us through binoculars that we were Omani Muslims and that with lots of other targets around they should, in deference to their fellow religionists, accordingly pass us by.

Spotting possible attackers at a distance was a key to our security plan, so the captain set up a watch schedule that called for one man at the helm and two on deck, each assigned a particular sector for which he had responsibility. We knew from the coalition task force that most attacks occur at dusk and at dawn and come from both Somalia and from Yemen, which are to the south and to the north, respectively, of our anticipated course. These times of day and these sectors, then, would receive our concerted attention. I sometimes personally joined the watch on deck during the early evening and night hours just to add another set of eyes and ears.

We had on board a superb set of night vision binoculars that employ both light gathering and infrared technology. These, along with a pair of conventional binoculars, were on deck at all times. Each man on watch had with him a VHF radio tuned to the channel we use for intra-crew communications.

We obtained from the coalition task force the phone numbers for both the conventional cell phone and single sideband phone that we were to call in the event of attack. These numbers were printed on labels in bold letters and attached to the phones and to the instrument panel on the bridge. We also had a portable satellite phone with its battery fully charged should other means of communications get knocked out or fail. These were all backup measures, though, for the marine VHF radio, our primary means of communication. There are two of these on board which are fix mounted and connected to high antennae on the mast and numerous smaller handheld but effective portable units.

Officers of the coalition task force told us that as soon as we spotted what appeared to be pirates we should call them, giving our vessel name, position, course, speed, the direction from which the attack was coming, and the number of attacking skiffs. They said they hoped to be able to have an “asset”, by which they meant armed helicopter, on the scene within thirty minutes or less from the time they received a call. This would require us to hold off an attempted boarding for at least that period of time.

We concluded that while it was mildly comforting to have the coalition warships patrolling the area, it would be foolish to rely on them. Ultimately we had to look out for ourselves, so, prudently I thought, we never included in our plans the potential for assistance.

The waters of the Gulf of Aden are at various times of the day full of Yemeni and Somali fishermen running around in boats identical to those employed by the pirates, so it’s important to be able to tell one from the other. Fishing boats, the coalition told us, have no more than two men on board while pirate boats have four to six and usually a long boarding ladder easily visible, otherwise you can’t tell them apart. Just to complicate matters, we learned that all fishermen carry the ever popular AK-47 for their own protection.

Our plan was that once we identified a suspicious looking small boat as being on an approaching course, whether or not we could confirm that it was full of pirates, we would sound an alarm which would alert all crew not assigned to specific duties to muster in the citadel room. We would also sound another very loud alarm with its annunciator mounted outside on the mast to alert the approaching craft that they had been spotted. At this point, John and Lloyd would grab their weapons, don their body armor, go out on deck to pre-selected positions, chamber rounds of ammunition and be prepared for whatever may ensue.

They chose to be on the bridge deck for their firing positions, which I thought was unwise because the entire superstructure of Indigo is constructed of aluminum through which small arms fire passes easily. I would have elected, and fully intended myself, to stand behind the one third-inch steel plate of the main deck bulwarks, a solid railing, 42 inches high, around the deck’s outer perimeter.

I had always assumed that it was resistant to any small arms fire, but John said that he thought a 7.62mm NATO round fired from an AK-47 would penetrate it. These are high velocity rounds able to pierce light armor but not our ceramic plated body armor, or so I was assured, but we didn’t know whether the pirates were using these or other lower powered rounds.

The advantage to their chosen firing positions was its higher elevation and, if John was right about the vulnerability of the bulwarks, their choice was a good one. I thought he was wrong and planned to deploy to the main deck. They’re the experts so I left the matter of their own deployment to their discretion.

Once we had identified an approaching boat as a threat, it would be assumed to be occupied by pirates with nefarious intentions. At this point, John and Lloyd would cut loose first with flares from our very pistol, which would be aimed in the manner of a warning shot. If that failed to divert the attackers, they would fire a fusillade from the AR-15s, the shotgun and even the pistol, aimed into the air for the purpose of alerting the pirates to what we hoped would be for them the unwelcomed news that we were armed.

Our prediction was that upon gaining this knowledge the pirates, known to be pickers of low hanging fruit and not known to be suicidal, would abort their attack and go off in search of softer targets. During this time, the bridge watch would call on VHF channel 16 to alert the coalition of the perceived attack and also call the phone numbers we had been given.

In the highly unlikely event that the pirates were even more dimwitted than their chosen occupation would suggest and chose to open fire, John and Lloyd would do likewise taking careful aim and firing in single shots as required by the weapons’ limitations and our somewhat limited supply of ammunition. The skiffs at which they would be firing have no protection whatever for their occupants—the expression sitting ducks seems appropriate– while John and Lloyd when on the bridge deck would be able at least to hunker down mostly out of sight. On the main deck they would be all but invisible and protected at least somewhat by the steel bulwarks. A betting man, upon assessing the relative merits of the pirates and Indigo, would place his money on Indigo and give generous odds against the chance of the pirates’ prevailing.

From many years of cruising around in small outboard powered boats, I knew that their decks are so lively, even in calm seas, that it would be impossible for pirates to hit anything they aimed at, especially firing from a considerable distance at a smallish target like Indigo. Hitting the accommodation block of an enormous commercial ship is one thing, hitting Indigo quite another.

We are highly vulnerable, however, because the superstructure, which houses the all important bridge, is aluminum rather than the steel plate of ships. If that were hit by a few wild rounds, they would pass through perhaps damaging communications, vessel control or other systems, even injuring a crew member on duty or, of more personal concern, injuring my much cherished self.

Somewhat more worrisome is the RPG, or rocket propelled grenade, which when it strikes a target explodes with terrific force doing far more damage than a small arms round. Hitting the proverbial broad side of a barn with an RPG round fired from a distance of a two or three hundred yards would be a feat of marksmanship deserving of an award. Hitting Indigo at such a remove firing from a small craft bouncing around at sea would be nothing short of miraculous. We also hoped that once the pirates identified Indigo as a fine motor yacht that if captured would bring a fat ransom they would not want to damage the merchandise, with small arms or RPG fire. We hoped.

In their typical attack, Somali pirates in their outboard powered skiffs close on unarmed ships, built entirely of steel plate, and attempt to rake the bridge area at the top of the accommodation block with automatic weapons fire. If they hit anything, it’s from sheer luck. In the past, this was enough of an intimidation to cause the ship’s master (the term used for the captain in commercial shipping) to come to a stop and allow the pirates to board, the crew often even lending them assistance in doing so. More recently, however, masters have been using zigzag steering movements and employing high pressure fire hoses and other tactics to discourage boarding, all with considerable effect. That fruit which once hung low on the tree has been picked.

To my knowledge, no commercial ship is equipped with firearms, although the US Army general in charge of the Middle East has encouraged ship owners to train and arm some crew members.

With all our preparations completed, we departed the marina in Muscat headed for whatever lay ahead. I was extremely confident that we had done all that could be reasonably done to ensure a safe voyage and that no matter what we might encounter we would come through it just fine. I have to confess that I also felt eager to get on with it as though embarking on an exciting new adventure, which, come to think of it, is just what I was doing.

We knew from John and Lloyd that the Somali and Yemeni pirates have grown somewhat more sophisticated of late and have begun employing coast watchers to detect the movement of potential target ships and have planted spies to alert them to opportunities. With this knowledge in hand, we took the precaution of casually announcing to the marina staff, most especially including the dock boys, that we were headed for Dubai, in the direction opposite to our intended course.

The coalition task force has established within the Gulf of Aden something called an Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor, or IRTC, which is often miscalled a secure corridor. Nothing about it is secure. The zone has for the pirates the beneficial effect of concentrating potential targets within a narrow belt thus saving them the bother of wandering about aimlessly in search of one. It also concentrates the meager resources of the coalition.

The IRTC consists of an east bound and a west bound lane, each five miles wide and 490 miles long. Between these is a separation zone, much like a median strip on an interstate highway, which is two miles wide. A distance varying between thirty and sixty miles separates the outer limits of the IRTC from the coasts of Somalia and Yemen, meaning that a pirate skiff setting out from the coast could reach the zone in as little as an hour and a half. Because we travel at around nine knots while large ships travel at more than fifteen, we were assigned to make our passage within the separation zone well clear of the faster vessels. This fortuitous placement was I believe in retrospect an important reason, though not the sole reason, why we were not attacked.

Numerous pirate attacks have taken place recently in Omani territorial waters. After the last of these, the Sultan, apparently in a fit of pique at these slaps to the royal face, sent word to all his military branches that they should do whatever was necessary to rid his coasts of these embarrassing incidents. Hoping to gain some incidental protection from a thusly aroused Omani military, we elected to travel west along the Oman coast to Salalah, near the border with Yemen, before venturing out into the Gulf and taking up our initial position in the IRTC. I believed that we should have little if any confidence in the supposed protections of the Oman military as their force is so small and the area of their territorial waters so great. As a result, we transited the coast on full alert.

Once we arrived at the eastern end of the IRTC, we were asked to so notify the coalition task force and to further notify them of our position and speed every three hours thereafter, which of course we did. When we got there, the captain decided to illuminate Indigo at night with only the barest navigation lights, a decision to which I strenuously objected but in the end with which I reluctantly went along. My thought was that we were in no danger at all of colliding with other vessels since we could see them easily on our radar, and they could see us on theirs. By using these lights we were simply broadcasting our presence to the pirates

Our passage through the Gulf occurred during the season known as the summer monsoon whose principal characteristic is a dry wind blowing night and day from the southwest at up to forty knots. Seas kicked up by this wind make it very difficult if not altogether impossible for pirates in small craft to operate, a fact in which we placed great hope. We could not, we thought, have picked a better time of year in which to make our passage.

In arriving at this mild delusion, however, we had failed to take account of the ever present workings of Murphy’s Law, which chose our first night in the IRTC to make its appearance. On that night the wind speed dropped sharply, the seas abated and, as if to mock our false hopes, a full moon rose into a clear sky. So luminous was the night sky that our high-tech night vision equipment was rendered useless. Conditions could not have been more genial for the pursuit of armed robbery at sea.

Apparently poised for the occasion, the pirates reported for duty, fired up their outboard motors and set out from their ports in search of treasure. During the four days and three nights that we were in the IRTC, considered to be the area with the highest risk of attack, we overheard on the VHF attacks on three commercial ships. Two of these attacks came from Somalia, one from Yemen. In each case, two or three pirate skiffs with four to five armed men in each approached a ship and opened fire aiming at the bridge.

In one attack, the bridge windows were shattered and a radar beacon damaged by automatic weapons fire and a rudder was damaged from what must have been an RPG round. We overheard all of this when the master under attack called the coalition to request assistance. His heavily accented voice, tense with emotion, gave the coalition warship nearest him the information they needed to launch a helicopter to come to his aide.

Meanwhile, the pirates, knowing they had only a short time within which they must board or be chased away, attempted to board. The ship’s master reported that he was commencing evasive maneuvers but his turns were initially so severe that they had the effect of slowing him considerably making boarding easier. A nearby ship’s master seeing this told the man that he must make his turns more deftly so as not to slow his forward speed, an adjustment he quickly made. He also constantly reported the position of the pirate skiffs, which the master under attack could not see from his vantage point on the bridge. As the pirates tried to board, the ship’s crew hit them with a powerful stream of water from the ship’s fire fighting system, which was enough deterrent to hold them at bay until the coalition helicopter arrived to chase the bad guys away.

The other two attacks were similar to this one and neither was successful. In both cases, a coalition helicopter arrived quickly and chased the attackers away. Two of the attacks took place on the same night, our first night in the IRTC, and within just a short time of each other. Even the most perceptive observer would be excused for thinking we had mistakenly wandered into the wrong end of a shooting gallery.

Listening over the VHF to the sounds of these attacks at night in Indigo’s darkened bridge was thrilling. The tense voice of a fearful ship’s master calling the coalition for help, the coalition radio operator’s calm and distinct diction as if he were placing an order for takeout food, the helpful suggestions from nearby ships’ masters, the helicopter pilot talking over the sound of whirring rotors asking details about location and direction and giving the worried master an estimate of his arrival time. These sounds reverberated around Indigo’s bridge and in the minds of her crew and yours truly.

All of us were intense, alert as it’s possible to be, ready in the event we should be the next target. Easy jocular banter, the usual sounds of the bridge, had been replaced by the crackling of the VHF and the taut voices of well-trained men going dutifully about their business punctuated by intervals of silence. At times I worked myself into a quiet but murderous rage at the utter cowardice of these scum who lurk about in the dark firing on unarmed people. The whole experience got my blood up in a way that no events in a usually hum-drum, secure comfortable life can match. All that said I also have to admit that I loved every exhilarating second of it.

In the deepest recesses of my mind there is regret that we were not attacked. It was Churchill, I believe, who said something to the effect that there is no thrill quite like being shot at without result. I have been shot at and, I am pleased to say, without result. On one memorable occasion, a severely irritated, and need I mention intoxicated, Cajun fired two blasts from his shotgun which though aimed in my general direction instead tore gaping holes in the atmosphere. Then there were all those live fire exercises during my military training which had the desired effect of encouraging the soldier to keep his head down.

I wanted not so much to get shot at as to shoot back at contemptible thugs who have been accustomed to firing on unarmed people, to frighten them as they have frightened so many others, and if it should come down to it, to put a few rounds into their skiffs or zinging over their heads or, if needed, into their miserable bodies to see how much they like it. I hope that honor falls to some other vessel soon. It’s long overdue.

During our time in the IRTC, we saw and heard over the radio a considerable number of coalition warships on patrol. All of these were light frigates with one or two helicopters on board from the navies of Japan, Iran (of all countries), France, Russia, South Korea, the US and NATO. We saw them providing escort for several convoys organized by the coalition of six to eight ships each, but these seemed pointless when pirates attacked one of the ships in the convoy. These Somali and Yemeni hoodlums are making fools of the world’s navies, attacking innocent, unarmed ships and crew right under the noses of their protectors.

These navies, very much including that of the US, have been Pelosified, or Obamafied if you like. They seem to be run by lawyers, not warriors, afraid they might hurt somebody. From what we could tell, most if not all of these warships operate under rules of engagement that preclude them from shooting pirates unless they are themselves fired on. What the pirates have figured out is that they can with complete impunity fire automatic weapons on innocent ships and people without risking their own life. What is missing is a determined political leadership to give the simple order that pirates who fire on innocents should be killed on the spot, no surrender accepted. Only then will all this nonsense stop.

Indigo made it through without a scratch for what I believe are three reasons. The first is just pure dumb luck. In both lanes of the IRTC, there was a constant stream of very large ships, brightly lit up at night and easily visible in the day. We saw with our eyes and with the radar hundreds of them, yet there were just three attacks. The odds, in other words, worked in our favor.

Another reason we weren’t attacked was that traveling in the separation zone between the two major shipping lanes meant that pirates, from either Somalia or Yemen, would have to travel at least five miles beyond the outer limits of those lanes and in doing so pass across a target-rich stream of ships just to reach us. Even though we were illuminated at night, they could not have seen us from a distance since our masthead light is very low to the sea, standing only about thirty-five feet in the air. They would have had to stumble upon us by accident.

One final reason I believe we avoided trouble was that from a distance in fading light, and particularly at night, we resemble a warship on patrol. Our feint minimal illumination was similar to that employed by the warships and our slow speed matched that of a patrolling navy vessel. Our size, much smaller than a commercial ship, more closely resembled that of a navy corvette or coastal patrol vessel. So a pirate coming upon us at night would not know quite what to think of us. We would be for him a highly unaccustomed sight, possibly fraught with risk, so he would be most likely to move on to targets he could understand and with which he has had much experience. To my knowledge no large motor yacht such as Indigo has ever been attacked.

The armed robbery that has for many years now been common in the Gulf of Aden is the best argument I can think of against gun control. In all my travels around the world thus far, every country I visited had very strict gun control laws essentially forbidding any citizen from owning a deadly weapon. So far as I know, only the US freely permits its citizens to own weapons, and thankfully it does. Without weapons on board, a vessel in the Gulf, especially a vessel which like Indigo is small, slow, and easily boarded, is entirely at the mercy of well-armed pirates. Indeed, the one fundamental reason for the pirate’s success is that they are armed and their victims are not. There has never been a single instance of an armed vessel being successfully hijacked in the Gulf of Aden.