Sunday, October 23, 2005

Arrgghh! Avast!


A few weeks ago, I spread the gospel on International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I came across this article on the BBC website about a recent incident in the Indian Ocean.

Pirates are not a thing of the past. They still exist and still cost international shipping millions of dollars a year.

Far from being romantic figures of swashbuckling legend, modern pirates are little better than thugs.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It never stopped, jrf. Pirates are everywhere.

jrf said...

No_Pirate_fan, I wouldn't say that pirates are everywhere, exactly.

A former Coast Guard officer recently regaled me with true life stories of modern Pirates of the Carribbean. He was very interesting. In a sense, you're right, they never went away. They just changed tactics. I guess it would be hard in the modern age to outfit a privateer with crew and ordnance to waylay and board a freighter.

I hear the Straits of Molucca in the Pacific are particularly rife with pirates.

Holy Mother Eph said...

They are the reason I am hesitant to join my husband in his dream of sailing around the world. I don't really want a gunshot to the head and a watery grave to end my adventures of life...or worse, be kidnapped and sold into sex slavery.