Monday, April 13, 2009

Perhaps Not the Safest Place to Be on the High Seas

So just to stay semi-current on geo-political events I looked up where Somalia's location is. They are the eastern-most tip of Africa located on the Gulf of Aden right near where the Suez Canal lets out, which is seriously prime real estate if you're in the business of commandeering loaded merchant ships.

And who is on the other side of this not so quiet body of water? The nice calm (not), and nearly completely lawless country of Yemen. Yikes - Can you say shooting gallery? Trouble is, if you need to go from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean then the Suez Canal is just about the only practical way to go which makes the whole adventure a not so welcome crap shoot.

This newscast says that a 10th of the world's cargo travels through there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjAhAJVSgLM

What's really surprising to me is the size of the ships especially the ones described here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSp9OGK69oA

I was thinking that the best defense is not to stop and some have out run them, but some how they are able to catch the ships. And now the pirates have rocket launchers. Eek.

8 comments:

Jan said...

Where's Johnny Depp and the Gracken when you need 'em?

Ellen said...

They're flying around here somewhere...

Elf said...

So weird to think of rampant piracy in this day and age that the superpowers seem powerless to do anything about. Even weirder to have the shippers and insurance companies wringing their hands over the US having killed some of the pirates because now it'll be REALLY dangerous and they might have to start going around the horn of africa instead, and that costs more than simply ransoming ships from the pirates. Huh.

Ellen said...

(By the was Somalia is the Horn, the other way is by way of the Cape of Good Hope off of S. Africa.)

I think they should escort every ship. It's expensive, but would save lives. Also, they/we should really keep other nations' fishing boats from poaching in Somalia's waters with the understanding that they'll do that if the piracy stops.

There are a whole lot of very wealthy nations right there so this problem has to be solvable.

Elf said...

Heh. So much for my geography. Somehow got it in my head that the Cape of GH was south america. Well, see what interesting things I learn by being involved in agility? ;-)

Ellen said...

Your confusion is totally understandable as just to be completely annoying, the South American is Cape Horn, though I believe shipping traffic cuts through the Strait of Magellan.

http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/magellan.gif

Ellen said...

And why, oh why, oh why can't Google Maps have better water feature labeling?

Elf said...

I've tried to find water info on the mapping programs before, too. My guess is that most people aren't trying to, for example, drive to or through the Strait of Magellan.