A Captain's Duty

There were thirty-nine attacks reported. For a single week . I sucked in my breath. The bulletin was like a police blotter for mariners, and it told me that East Africa was the last place in the world you wanted to be right now.
    I flicked my eye over some of the entries:
1. Vessel reported suspicious approach 20 Mar 09 at 0600 UTC while underway, Bab-el-Mandeb.
2. Five men in two speed boats armed with guns approached vessel from the port bow, Bab-el-Mandeb.
3. Chemical tanker reported attempted boarding 29 Mar 09, Gulf of Aden.
4. German navy tanker (FGS SPESSART) fired upon 29 Mar 09. Seven pirates in a skiff opened fire on the naval ship, mistaking it for a merchant vessel, Gulf of Aden.
5. Vessel fired upon, approached by one skiff with seven men onboard armed with AK-47s, Gulf of Aden.
6. Bulk carrier (TITAN) hijacked 19 Mar 09. Six men in a speed boat armed with AK47s and pistols boarded and hijacked the vessel, Gulf of Aden.
7. Cargo vessel (DIAMOND FALCON) fired upon 14 Mar 09. Two skiffs with men onboard armed with automatic weapons and RPGs fired upon the vessel.
8. Vessel reported attempted hijacking 1 Jan 09 at 1730 local time, Gulf of Aden.
9. Bulk carrier fired upon 30 Mar 09. A speed boat approached the vessel while a mother ship was sighted further back, Indian Ocean.
10. Container ship reported suspicious approach 28 Mar 09, Tanzania.
    The pirates were approaching and attacking each and every kind of vessel that ventured around the Horn of Africa: tankers, fishing schooners, even luxury cruise ships. Nothing was safe out there. There were so many ships flying down the coast of East Africa, you had to hope you weren’t one of the unlucky ones to see a few pirate boats pop up on your radar. Once you saw them, you had very few ways of preventing an attack: speed, fire hoses, and deception were pretty much your only tools. The Somalis had automatic weapons, speedboats, rocket-propelled grenades, and a reputation for complete ruthlessness.
    It was like a lion and a herd of wildebeest on the Africanplain. You just hoped there was safety in numbers, because if the lion chose you, you were going to have a very, very bad day. And just as the lion looks for weakness—the slow, the lame, the young—pirates zeroed in on ships that looked defenseless.
    But Americans seemed out of the reach of pirates. The last time seamen on a U.S. ship were taken hostage by pirates was two hundred years ago, during the days of the Barbary corsairs, Muslim bandits who’d operated out of North African ports like Tripoli and Algiers, on the other side of the continent. Back then, piracy was near the top of Thomas Jefferson’s priority list. In 1801, 20 percent of the U.S. federal budget was spent paying ransoms to the African buccaneers. Crewmen from the ships lived and worked as slaves in the luxurious homes of the Algerian pirate chiefs. America even fought two bloody wars with the Barbary states, giving the Marines’ Hymn its famous second line—“to the shores of Tripoli.”
    That was a long time ago. Piracy had faded from the nation’s memory. And if you did get in trouble, it was assumed you were on your own. The U.S. Navy hadn’t been in the pirate-hunting business for two centuries. But by the end of that second day, I felt the crew was ready for an attack. Things could always improve, but we’d made a good start. Little did I know that the men who were going to test us to our limits were already on the water.

FOUR
-6 Days
    The situation in this region is extremely serious. We have not seen such a surge in pirate activity in this area previously. These pirates are not afraid to use significant firepower in attempts to bring vessels under their control. Over 260 seafarers have been taken hostage in Somalia this year. Unless further action is taken, seafarers remain in serious danger.
    —Statement by Pottengal Mukundan, director of the International Maritime Bureau, August 21, 2008
    I ’d never been approached by a pirate ship in my entire career, but I’d come close. On a run through the Gulf of Aden the previous September, I’d been standing on the bridge when Shane, my chief mate, pulled me aside.
    “Cap, you know I mentioned to you that ship we passed earlier?”
    I nodded. On the more well-traveled routes around the world, you’d see the same ships again and again, running thesame legs of the trip you’re on and stopping in the same ports. Their names pop up on the AIS, the Automatic Identification