Yacht Hostages Held by Pirates Off Somalia Released
 

Glad to see it. Can you imagine that happening to you sometime? Pirates still exist and not just on the silver screen!

Damn pirates, I've just about had my fill!

Arrrhhh. We shall accept no quarter with remarks like that matey!

Calling them pirates just makes it borderline amusing.:D

They're helping to stem global warming.

MORE PIRATES!!! YARRRRRRRRGH!!!

Call em what you will, but when your alone out on the water and approached by a bunch of thugs, its gotta built character...................

case in point....

The year was 1983, I sold my home and everything in a garage sale and bought a 1972 Coronado 35' Sloop with diesel auxillary. We sailed down from Georgia and ventured across the Okeechobee Waterway and hung out at at St. Petersburg (anchored next to the old HMS Bounty in Venoy basin). We were preparing to cross the Gulf to Mobile, Alabama and take the "Big Bend" up near the panhandle of Florida. Back then it was not a marked channel like the ICW from Cedar Key above Tarpon Springs to Appalachacola. Open water, no protection, no civilization, no nothing, BUT!!!!!!!!!! If it were not for meeting a few Coasties in Tarpon Springs one night, I never would have known that this area was known as a "pirate hangout"! Say what?????? Here in the good ole USA?????

It was at this part of the Gulf that sailboats and powerboats were captured and used for the drug trade. Yep! Pirates of the Gulf..........aaaarrrrgggghhhh.
Well, we knew it was not a tall tale told on a cold night over a hot-buttered rum, but a fact the Coast Guard knew, and warned boaters whenver possible.
"It would be too late to save you, if you were boarded in that area", said one Coastie. The gulf is too big to chase down boats, so you take a risk.

Looking back, I wished I had a 12-pounder mounted on my deck and a crew full of Jack Sparrow's, but we never ventured up the "Big Bend". Maybe that was a wise choice after all.

Bob:D

This is exactly why I have stopped boating off the coast of Somalia.....

Pity, it's such a nice place to visit.

Hoist the black flag, we are going Pirating! I wonder what the French response will be in the longer term. If I was a pirate, I would be waiting till I got word if the French bought them off, and then I would start looking for a French Vessel to take.

At least they'd surrender easily.

Pirates are very much alive. When we were building Hong Kong Disneyland, at least twice pirates pulled up in their gun ship trained their machine guns on workers and used a crane on the ship to take a front end loader and the second time, a backhoe.

Pirates when boarded by French SF..surrendered ASAP.
now what needs to happen..
cuff them , if you make it to shore your free !

Rika

Parlay! Parlay!:D

I, for one, welcome this trend. don't you guys give a crap about the planet?

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