Bowermaster’s Adventures — Pirates in Seychelles

by Jon Bowermaster on

Five a.m. on the Indian Ocean, a quarter mile off the small granite island of La Digue. Daylight is still an hour away, the sea flat and quiet, still too early for the call of morning birds and too dark for pirates.

And pirates are on everyone’s minds and lips here. Just days before Somali pirates had grabbed a tuna boat with a crew of 29 just to the north of where we motor, near Denis Island. A few days before that they’d taken a commercial dive boat and before that a private sailboat. Apparently being thwarted in waters closer to home – the Seychelles are easily six hundred miles from the coast of Somalia – due to an increase in navy ships patrolling, the brash pirates have headed here for new booty.

Walking the hot-hot streets of the capital of Mahe yesterday it was hard to avoid the subject. Headlines in the daily “Nation” claim “Piracy at Top of President’s Agenda.” Lunch of garlic prawns is at the Pirate Arms (right next to the Pirate Arms Shopping Complex). On the docks, fishermen tell me they’re not going out to sea, for risk of being hijacked for ransom. In the Museum of Natural History literally the first exhibit in the door tells the story of the Seychelles’ very first residents: Pirates. From sometime in the 15th century to 1730, these islands were the hideaway of some of the most notorious, most famously the celebrated Olivier Le Vasseur, alias “La Buze,” who was said to have been the best of the best, or the worst of the worst, dependent on your take on pirates.

Last month I was a thousand miles to the east in the Maldives; I’ve come here to continue exploring the boundaries of what was once called the Sea of Zanj. Who knew that the news-garnering Somali pirates would show up at the same time?

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Here, quickly, are a few things I know about the Seychelles, other than their pirate history: A 115 island archipelago, a mix of granite islands and coral cays, stretched over 700 miles (all its land combined makes the entire chain about twice the size of Washington D.C.). Arab traders were most likely the first to spy them; officially Portuguese Admiral Vasca da Gama first recorded them, in 1502. A former French and British colony, the country has been independent since June 29, 1976 and boasts the smallest population of any African state. Independence brought a 30-plus-year dictatorship, endemic corruption, and a thriving black market and near bankruptcy; only a recent IMF emergency loan kept it from sinking.

The economy is based on the twin Ts: Tourism and Tuna. A world leader in sustainable tourism, more than fifty percent of the island nation is nature conservancy. As the sun begins to glow along that line where blue meets blue, it reveals a smattering of tall green islands, rimmed by boulder strewn and white sand beaches.

By the end of the day yesterday there were rumors on the streets of Mahe that a French navy ship had attacked and freed the Taiwanese tuna ship and its crew; rumor also has it that a U.S. military ship is on the way from patrolling near the Gulf of Aden.

In the last few weeks the Somali pirates have roamed far from their own coastline, moving south and east to the Seychelles and Comoros Islands, where there are no international naval patrols. They want bigger, more expensive ships to hold for ransom and tuna boats to use as “mother ships” to town their speedboats. These are not all rag-tag independents; there’s talk of a “pirate mafia” and suggestions that one reason they’ve come to the Seychelles is to distract its Navy thus making sneaking drugs into the country easer. The pirates are trained fighters who frequently dress in military fatigues; their speedboats are equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment and they are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades.

At the moment a total of 14 vessels and about 200 crewmembers are currently under their control, despite increased patrolling by warships from China, the U.S., France and India. They are gambling that warships will not be sent this far south. The fact that the seas have been calm has allowed them to roam too and they have come back in force, seizing five boats in a 72-hour period from Somalia to the Seychelles.

“We’re going to end up probably playing a cat-and-mouse game in the next six months,” said Graeme Gibbon Brooks, managing director of the British company Dryad Maritime Intelligence Service Ltd.

From where I sit this morning, looking one hundred eighty degrees over a calm sea, it looks like a very, very big arena for playing games.

Read more from Jon at Bowermaster’s Adventures.

Bowermaster’s Adventures — Welcome to the Sea of Zanj!

by Jon Bowermaster on

Six to seven hundred years ago the very first to explore what we know as the Indian Ocean were Arabs, from Persia and the northern deserts. Searching what every sea-faring explorer of the time was seeking – trading routes and new lands to colonize – they explored what came to be known at the time as the Sea of Zanj, the Sea of Blacks. From the Maldives to the east coast of Africa (Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, the Seychelles islands, Mauritius, Reunion and more the Arabs put down roots, built sea ports. During the 1600s pirates, who used the islands off the coast of Africa as both temporary hideouts and permanent homes, followed the black Arabs. It wasn’t until the late 1700s that Europeans – sailing from Spain, France, England, the Netherlands and more – first explored the region. It’s a rich history, going back nearly eight hundred years; this past spring I spent two months exploring the seas between the Maldives and the coast of east Africa, in search of all those roots (and routes) and coming up on a sizable number of a species that it turns out is not so new to the region: Pirates.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks from dispatches from Jon at Bowermaster’s Adventures.

Bowermaster’s Adventures — Bluepeace

by Jon Bowermaster on

Saffah Faroog sips a mango juice and continues explaining the history of the Maldives oldest environmental group, Bluepeace, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. He is its communications director, a volunteer like the rest of its staff, and has a great story to share – the organization has a great web presence and a long history of doing the right thing in the Maldives by keeping environmental stories in the news. There’s no lack of subject matter with beach erosion, species loss, the impact of climate change and rising sea levels and the still lingering after effects of the 2004-tsunami still daily stories.

“Perhaps the most impressive thing for us here in the Maldives,” he says, “is that just two years ago I would never had a conversation in public with you like this, not about these subjects. We had to be very careful about everything we wrote, anything we said in public or private, because almost anything could be construed as a potential criticism of the government, thus possibly resulting in recrimination.

“You have to remember that our new president was a journalist turned civil rights activist who was jailed and tortured and once held in solitary confinement for 18 months for criticizing the government. And that wasn’t so long ago.”Faroog is from one of the southern atolls but has lived in Male most of his life. A writer and editor, he’s traveled outside of the Maldives a few times, has even seen snow, in Bhutan. He volunteered fulltime for six months last year to help get the new president elected. His take on the new administration is “so far, so good,” but he admits that as well as a handful of serious environmental issues – which President Mohammed Nasheed has already taken on directly, especially in the court of world opinion – there are other serious issues that need immediate attention.

“Here where we sit, the capital island of Male is one of the most crowded places on earth. One hundred thousand people live on an island just one square mile. In the last few years we have serious problems of drugs and gangs. One third of everyone under twenty-five uses heroin; we have stabbings and murders on the street every week. The drugs manage to sneak through the airport or the seaport. It’s becoming a dangerous place to live and the president has to do something about that.”

My experience in island nations is that it’s hard to talk with locals about long-term environmental issues like climate change and rising seas since their temperament is to look only as far as tomorrow or next week, not decades into the future, a kind of island version of manana. Faroog agrees that it can be tricky here too. “The impacts of climate change seem very far away to them, which I understand. But we have to keep having those conversations.

“In Male we are just one meter above the sea; they are already building a new island that is two meters above sea level, which should be sufficient. But when those on the outer islands hear the new president talk about creating a fund from tourist revenues to use to buy land to move us one day from the islands … they think that sounds crazy.

“Of course rising seas are our major concern. But so are warming seas, which impact our coral, lead to more erosion, harm the fish life and impact daily life. Everything here is simple … and everything is connected.”

See Jon Bowermaster and get a discount subscription at Wend Magazine

by Grant Martin on

Our good friend Jon Bowermaster has a headlining article over at this month’s Wend Magazine called Every Ocean, Every Ecosystem, in which he recounts his travels around the world, sea kayaking past every continent and through every ocean. It’s an interesting and sobering look into our rapidly changing ecosystem and the current state of nature, excellently told by a talented writer.

To celebrate our colleague and the publication into Wend Magazine we’re teaming up with Wend to launch a promo. Subscribe to Wend using the promotion code “gadling” to get an $18/year subscription, or hook yourself up with a digital subscription for only $5 at http://www.wendmag.com/subscribe.

Additionally, anyone who subscribes using our promotion code will get a copy of this month’s Wend Magazine with Bowermaster’s article hand sent to them.

Make sure to check out Bowermaster’s Adventures at Gadling for more dispatches around the world!

Bowermaster’s Adventures — Eydhafushi, Maldives

by Jon Bowermaster on

Late on a Sunday afternoon, hardly a day of rest in this part of the world, the small island of Eydhafushi is quiet. The men, most of who go to sea each day to fish or work at one of six nearby tourist resorts, are absent. School is out for a week’s holiday so kids of various ages scamper up and down the short, dusty streets. The women of the island of 3,000 are mostly in doorways or small backyards or sitting in laid-back sling chairs made of strong twine strung from metal frames lining the streets.

Like all Maldivian towns this is laid out in squares. From the start of any street you can stare down it and see blue ocean at the other end. A four-hundred-foot tall, red and white striped telephone tower adorned with a variety of satellite dishes shouts modernity has arrived; the head scarves worn by all women over thirty suggests a powerful connection to centuries-old tradition hangs on. As I walk the streets, obviously an outsider, I stop to chat people up and the responses are friendly, smiling. Everyone I meet – man, woman, child – gives me good, hard handshake as a hello. Though poor, this is not an impoverished place.

Despite the booming tourist business that exists on islands all around, most of these people have little contact with outsiders. Tourists in the Maldives are confined largely by geography to the resort islands. Water surrounds and there aren’t shuttles or ferries or water taxis to take people easily from island to island. During the recently ended thirty-year dictatorship, locals were strongly discouraged from mingling with visitors, concerned that negative influences from the west might rub off. Tourists drink alcohol, run around mostly naked and come to party, after all. By comparison, the local populace does not imbibe and is called to prayer several times a day (though there is reportedly a sizable heroin habit among many of the Maldive’s young people).
Concrete-block-and-cement walls lining the streets are painted in bright orange and purple and faded blue; older walls are made from pieces of coral, a construction now forbidden due to efforts to preserve the fragile reefs. Many of the walls bear stenciled black-and-red “Vote for Saleem” signs, which rather than feel defacing are actually a reminder of a positive thing that’s come to the Maldives in the last few years: Democracy.

I visit with a woman dressed in purple from head to toe; she is bundling reeds for roofs, explaining she is the breadwinner since her husband is sick. Fifty-two, she came here thirty years ago from a nearby, smaller island. In that time, she says, everything has gotten better. The economy. Politics. The way of life, including fifty channels of satellite television. And yes, she worries about rising sea levels, but primarily for her kids. “The seas are climbing … but what can I do?” is the plaint I hear from most here.

On the far side of the island a Woman’s Collective has turned out for a late-afternoon communal sweeping of a corner of the island. Bent at the waist, wearing headscarves and long dresses, they whisk brooms over the sand/dirt ground along the edge of the sea. Paid a small salary by the local government, the clean up is a good thing. But a bad side of island life here is evident just behind where they sweep: Piles of plastic garbage bags, which apparently did not make the once-a-month barge that carries garbage away to a nationwide rubbish-island near Male.

A new port reinforced by thick cement walls has been dredged in the last year, long enough to accommodate thirty to forty fishing boats. It was needed post-tsunami, which turned the local fishing fleet into matchsticks in December 2004. “You ask where the tsunami hit,” responds a 70-year-old man in green polo shirt, faded madras skirt and red Nike flip-flops. “Everywhere. That wave came from every direction at once.” He lucked out when the wave hit, since he was twenty feet up a coconut tree knocking off cocos.

Deeply tanned, his shaved head boasting a thin veneer of graying stubble, he tells me he still fishes when there’s a bit of wind, necessary because his boat has only a sail, no motor. A jack of all island trades, he’s fished, collected coconuts, worked construction and, not so long ago, was paralyzed over half his body due to some unexplained (to him) malady. Today he shows off his good health with the strongest handshake yet.