Ahoy matees! While growing up, there was always this question in the back of my mind of, what will I be when I grow up? We all had to take a course on career preparations in high school wasn't very useful. One of the things that we had to do in that course was fill out an electronic questionnaire, and it would give you a list of careers that you may enjoy doing. Mine came back as
systems analyst, which is quite possiblely the most glamourous of all careers. However, recently I discovered that there's a career that I thought had become extinct like the dodo bird, pirate. It turns out that piracy in the high seas is still a very viable career path!
Check out this story entitled, "
U.S. Warships Close In On Pirates With Soviet Tanks Off Somalia." It seems like pirates these days are after military hardware instead of ye olde dubloons. Awesome.
U.S. warships closed in on a ship carrying a cargo of battle tanks, seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia, after the captain died of a heart attack. The pirates are demanding a $20 million ransom. Somali pirates seized the Faina, a Belize-flagged vessel with a crew of 17 Ukrainians, three Russians and one Latvian, on Sept. 25, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. It was carrying at least 30 Soviet-designed T-72 tanks to Kenya.
The Faina's Russian captain, Vladimir Kolobkov, died after the pirates seized the ship, Nikolsky said. He added that there are currently about 50 armed pirates on board, and confirmed there are about 20 crew. [...]
``Two big warships are patrolling around us and several planes flew at low altitude overhead, but they didn't hurt us,'' Omar said. ``In case they try to take any military action, we will fight against them until the last one dies.''
The U.S. has several ships in the area shadowing the Faina, which is anchored off the Somali coast near the port city of Hobyo, near two other pirated ships, Lieutenant Nate Christensen said by telephone from Bahrain.
In a statement yesterday, the U.S. Navy said the destroyer USS Howard was within visual range of the ships. Christensen wouldn't say how many naval ships are now in the vicinity or say if any special forces are on board. French naval commandos two weeks ago freed a French yacht that had been taken by Somali pirates.
Anyways, pretty crazy eh? Looks like there are some a lot of unsafe waters out there which are prone to pirate attacks. Who would have thought? Anyone know where to sign up to join the crew of some mighty pirates? Y'arr.
