CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???? here's the first draft! we are all ok, and expecting a
Spanish escort by 4 pm, the Italian navy ship by night fall. More soon -check
out any news for MSC Melody pirates and e-mail any links you find! THX --K
It’s just before mid night and we just have been attacked by pirates at sea.
Jim and I had a front row port hole. We thought they we kidding, joking,
having fun, shouting in French and shooting with big guns. At one point I
thought they were shooting out to sea, rather than towards us, but no, I was
wrong. There are bullet holes in our ship.
For Jim and I, they were just out our window. We could hear their voices, see
them in their small white fishing boat, and see the flash of the guns when
they fired. We are about 2/3 to the back of the ship.
The pirate boat was pulling a bit forward of our window, then slowing to be
almost behind us, before catching up again. A majority of the time they were
with us, they were front and center to our room, oh, how I wish I had pulled
out my camera!
After 8-10 loud blasts, we heard them yelling “au vaous “ and saw them quickly
get left behind as we kept moving full speed ahead.
We talked to a neighbor in our hallway, and then decided to put some pants on
and head for the social deck. Many people were headed down towards the
staterooms as we were swimming upstream on the main stairway. We saw people on
the ground, and others crouching in doorways leading to the aft decks. The
piano bar was still fairly full, but the patrons in there cruise attire were
sitting on the floor looking at Jim and I as if we were crazy. A man standing
in the steal corner between the door and window, told us to “GET DOWN!” We
thought it was a bit dramtic, as we had seen them leave. The man showed us
where a bullet had come through the large rectangular window just next to
where he was standing.
We left Seychelles at 1pm, headed for 6 days at sea, this would be the long
distant route around Somalia into the Red Sea. I expected the danger area to
be 3 days away. We are 100s of miles from anywhere, at least 250 miles north
of Seychelles and more than 500 miles off of the Somali coast.
