Gulf of Aden
Trip Start
Aug 01, 2008
1
130
150
Trip End
Dec 20, 2008
Gulf of Aden,
Yemen
Monday, December 1, 2008
Off Aden (at noon) N 12° 34.2' E 45° 30.6'
A really beautiful morning. The sun was up behind us when I looked out, but you couldn't see the horizon yet, ahead. The sea was almost flat, and glassy. A few ships were visible, appearing to float in the sky as much as on the sea.
When I did my walk after breakfast, having found an open route to the deck at the third attempt, due to the security gates, all was quiet and peace; only the bosun on deck apart from me, and you could hear the occasional flying fish splashing back into the water. The bow wave over the bulbous bow was so smooth and steady that I could see clouds reflected in it
Floating on Air or Water?
. Over the hour I was walking, activity increased and I expect the paint brushes are out in force by now (10:30).We are in a traffic lane off the Yemen coast, heading for the Bab el Mandeb* so there are several ships in sight. We seem to be going slightly faster than a similar container ship over to starboard, so perhaps the Captain's tactic is to have that as a decoy (like the old joke, we don't need to go faster than the pirates, just faster than a slightly more convenient ship at hand . . .). Perhaps the other captain has some in reserve! We're a couple of miles nearer to Somalia, too.
*My projection of our course and speed shows that we'll get to this interesting spot in the evening. In daylight you should be able to see Africa to port and Asia to starboard. I suppose as we're heading west, sunset will be later, so I'll have the camera ready. I believe that once we're off Djibouti, the main pirate danger is passed.
[Later:] At about 16:00, I happened to look out of my window, and there was a boat with four or five men in it. I grabbed the camera and went out, just as it changed course from paralleling us to head east. This put it in the path of a ship coming the other way. Hard to make out in the waves, another small boat was trailing behind that ship . . .
. . . as far as I know, they were simply fishermen, and we saw several more boats including some improbably fast ones crossing our wake. Could these be smuggling, or even just acting as small ferries?
We could see both Africa and Asia from about 17:00 for over an hour, the sun setting behind the coastal hills of Eritrea as we slowed to normal speed having reached the safety of the Red Sea.
