The Pirate Life on Somalia’s Coast

by Josh Lew on

The BBC recently ran a feature about the pirates who have been terrorizing ships off Somalia’s coastline. These pirates make their money by capturing ships of all sorts, from cruise ships to freighters, and demanding a ransom. Are these guys modern day eye-patch-wearing rum-lovers? According to BBC reporter Robyn Hunter, they are ambitious young men who have found a niche and are exploiting it to ensure that they live the good life in a troubled country where half of the population relies on foreign food aid to survive.

A resident of Puntland, the semi-autonomous coastal area from which the pirates operate, gave Hunter the lowdown on the attraction of the pirate life:

“They have money; they have power and they are getting stronger by the day…They wed the most beautiful girls; they are building big houses; they have new cars; new guns…Piracy in many ways is socially acceptable. They have become fashionable.”

But the heyday for these cowboys of the Gulf of Aden may be coming to an end. Shipping companies are planning on hiring security contractors to guard ships passing through the area. That will significantly lessen the chance of pirates being able to take a ship and its crew hostage without a fight. It is doubtful though, that the presence of a few armed contractors will lessen the lure of the easy money of the pirate life.

Crossing the Atlantic in the Queen Mary 2

by Tynan on

When I travel I try to cover as many superlatives as possible. The world’s tallest building (Taipei 101 for now), the longest tunnel (connecting mainland Japan with Hokkaido), the slowest train in the world.

So when I was trying to figure out how to get from Europe back to the United States, there was only one choice. The grandest choice. A seven day journey aboard the famed Queen Mary 2.

The Queen Mary 2, for those who don’t know, is Cunard’s flagship ocean liner. She was specially built for trans-Atlantic cruises, an effort which required a laundry list of technological breakthroughs. Even five years after her maiden voyage, she’s still the longest passenger ship in the world. She’s also the widest, which means she can’t make it through the Panama Canal.

Boarding the ship was the easiest cruise boarding experience I’ve had. Things were off to a good start, although a warning bell went off in my head when a mandatory picture was taken before getting on board.

Was this going to be a regular cruise, just trumped up a bit to seem more fancy?It did share more than I expected with a typical cruise, but its distinctions set it far apart from any cruise I’d been on before. If I were to draw a line down the list, I’d say that it retains the good parts and mostly avoids the annoyances.

There are shops, but they’re not peddling gold by the foot in the hallways. The servers don’t sing and dance, not that I particularly mind that on other ships apart from when they’re forced to sing the American National Anthem. The rooms have the typical amenities but are bigger and better appointed. The gym was surprisingly well equipped and much bigger than usual. The library had an amazing selection and a system for checking books out.

The few shows I saw were excellent. They had a famous British pianist play, and I spent an hour listening to the producer of the upcoming Broadway show, Tale of Two Cities, talk about the theater business. I kept intending to go to the shows in the on-board planetarium, but never actually made it there. Despite the slow pace of life on the ship, the days do seem to fly by.

What makes the cruise special, to me at least, is the camaraderie between the passengers. Even if it is made bi-weekly, the trip seems epic. After all, you’re crossing the Atlantic by sea, the way it was first crossed when settlers came to America. Everyone is thrilled to be on board and realizes that with seven days without stopping, making friends is going to be one of the best activities there is.

When we arrived in New York we said goodbye to well over a dozen friends, most of whom we got to know over dinner in the two-story dining room, or across the felt during the nightly poker games.

I could complain about a few things on the trip. In contrast with the stellar maid service, the waiter service wasn’t as good as service I had on a cheap Carnival cruise through the Caribbean. All of the Scrabble sets had the wrong amount of tiles, which probably only offends obsessed Scrabble players like myself. But in the end, these few glitches were afterthoughts of days full of pure enjoyment.

The next time I cross the Atlantic, taking the Queen Mary 2 will be the first method I look at. You can book directly at Cunard, or try Cruise Compete, which is where we got an unbelievably good deal.

Hollywood stuntman to sail Atlantic in popsicle stick ship

by Abha Malpani on

31 world record breaker and former Hollywood stuntman Robert McDonald’s new adventure is to cross the Atlantic in a 15-meter ship made of 15 million ice-cream sticks, that looks like a replica of a Viking ship.

A lot of the sticks were used, steam-cleaned ones and about 13-million of them were donated by Unilever. He made the ship, stick by stick, with the help of his son and 5000 children from Holland; the sticks have been stuck together by salt-water proof glue. This ship is probably the world’s largest handmade recycled object.

McDonald’s creative and risk-filled life stems from the fact that he was injured in a gas explosion that killed his parents and six-siblings, and confined him to 5-years of hospital bed rest. All his feats are motivated by a strong and simple belief that he wants to share with kids: “you can do anything”. Part of McDonald’s fearless stunt portfolio includes climbing the Twin Towers in 1995, and free-climbing the Grand Canyon.

A dangerous expedition but possible; the ship is undergoing various sea-trials at the moment. Apparently, McDonald said that when a boat inspector analyzed one of his planks made of 5000 popsicle sticks, he pronounced it 5-times stronger than steel.(!)

According to a Reuters report, he currently is looking for a crew to sail the ship across Atlantic from Holland to America as well as of course, funding.

Cockpit Chronicles: Taken for a ride in Panama City

by Kent Wien on

I called my friend Captain Dave the day before our trip.

“Dave, we’re going to hit the ground running in Panama City so we can check out the canal. I’ve got it all figured out. Just get to bed early,” I said.

Dave was up for this. He actually traded one of his Barbados layovers to fly this trip with me. Sometimes it’s worth it to fly an ugly trip with a good friend. We’ve been flying together for about five years and we always have a good time discussing current events and hanging out on layovers.

I studied up on the Wikitravel Panama City entry and figured we could get a taxi over to the Miraflores Locks where there was supposed to be a decent restaurant overlooking the canal.

When I met up with Dave in operations, he had quite the story to tell. He went to bed the night before at 7 p.m. and, you guessed it, woke up at about 10 p.m. After tossing and turning a while longer, he figured he might as well come into work a few minutes earlier than normal for what he thought was a 5:30 a.m. departure. It wasn’t until he arrived at the Boston airport that he realized the flight departed at 6:45 a.m. He was almost three hours early. He tried to nap on a recliner in the crew lounge, but I imagine it’s hard to get much sleep when you’re kicking yourself all the time.

%Gallery-17310%I showed up on time and relatively well rested. I have to give credit to Dave. He was as determined to see the canal as I was, even after what would be a long day of flying. We left on time from Boston to Miami and continued on to Panama City just an hour later. Flying south to Panama took us directly over Cuba, which has excellent controllers, then through Jamaica’s airspace before finally talking to Panama control.

We landed in Panama City at 2 p.m. and made it to the hotel an hour later. Surprisingly, Dave was still willing to take the trip to the canal. We changed clothes and checked with the concierge about getting a cab to the locks. The Wikitravel entry mentioned a flat rate of $25 if you want to hire the cab for the entire day. The concierge spent a few minutes talking to a cab driver before deciding that we’d be better off with a private taxi since the cabby couldn’t speak much English.

Louis was probably close to eighty years old and he looked harmless enough. We hopped in the car and he drove about 50 feet before he turned to us and said, “No drugs!”

“What’s that?” I said, while sitting in the front seat.

“No drugs. I can take you anywhere you’d like, show you anything, just nooo drugs.” He said.

I know we’d been awake for close to 14 hours at this point, but how bad did we look?

“We’d just like to go to the Miraflores Locks for dinner.” I told Louis.

Louis said he’d be willing to do that, but he could also take us to Casco Viejo and some other interesting locations as well. And for all that, the total would be $80 for the day.

Now here’s a tip. Don’t get INTO a taxi until you have the price negotiated. Since we were already in the cab, our negotiating leverage was pretty much nil.

“$40 a person, OK, fine, I suppose.” This better be one heck of a tour, I thought.

Louis drove us toward the locks and explained that it was a great way to see the canal. Had we gone to the observation deck, it would cost $16. But if we went to the restaurant, we could eat at a buffet for $21. That worked for us. I was happy to save some money after agreeing to pay for Louis’s car payment for the month.
The traffic northbound out of the city was really slow going. It was the Friday before Mardi Gras and the celebrations were just starting, which meant a main road was closed in the city. Our drive took about 45 minutes, but Louis did his best to give us some of the details of his city. But it was hard to hear all the stories over the snoring that Dave was doing in the back seat.

Dave hasn’t stopped nagging me about the time I took him on a packed subway so we could find my favorite bathroom in Paris, so I knew I’d be hearing about this extravagant cab ride for many months to come.

We made it to the Miraflores Locks, which are the last locks before the Pacific Ocean. After climbing a few flights of stairs, we picked up some free passes that would get us past the guards to the restaurant. It was 5:30 p.m. when we sat down for dinner by ourselves on the balcony overlooking the locks. The view was spectacular and we soon realized that we needed to stay there for a full dinner, even if we had to miss out on touring any other parts of Panama City.

In order to see how the canal works, take a look at this 30 second animation showing the entire canal, and then this one that illustrates the way a lock operates.

Any visit to the canal wouldn’t be complete without a few mind-blowing facts about what some call the eighth wonder of the world:

  • 27,000 workers died during the construction.
  • On a New York to San Francisco trip, the canal saves 7800 miles.

  • Each canal door needs to be replaced every ten years and weighs 750 tons (the same as 12 Boeing 757’s).
  • Ships are prioritized by a bidding system. The more you’re willing to pay, the sooner you can enter the canal.
  • The canal averages 40 ships per day or 14,000 a year.
  • A typical passage by a cargo ship takes 9 hours to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
  • Crossings cost as little as $650 for a sailboat to $141,000 for a cruise ship.

Dave and I watched three or four huge ships pass through during our two-hour dinner there. I’ve included a gallery showing the view from the restaurant as well as some aerial shots of the canal I took when we passed overhead earlier in the day.

%Gallery-17310%

The buffet dinner couldn’t have been better and we enjoyed the local Balboa beer as well. Every country we fly to in the Caribbean and Central America seems to have their own beer and surprisingly they all taste exactly the same. I’m not complaining as I do like them all, but I can’t tell the difference.

Louis came up twice to check on us; probably to be sure we weren’t skipping out on his taxi bill, but also to let us know that we were going to miss seeing the other parts of town. We knew we’d be back, and we had found the perfect place to eat and enjoy the monumental view.

The drive back to the hotel took an hour because of the traffic. I marveled at all the construction and found a few open wi-fi spots with my iPhone as we crept through the city. Dave slept in the backseat. Fortunately we didn’t have to leave for another eighteen hours, so he could catch up on a lot of sleep back at the hotel.

The next day we flew to Miami and then on to Caracas, Venezuela where we laid over for sixteen hours. The rest of the trip was uneventful, but I did manage to get some nice shots of the sun going down on the way from Caracas to Miami.

One of the benefits of this job has been the ability to travel to some interesting places that I might have otherwise missed. If you don’t think you’ll ever make it to Panama, at least you can check out this webcam from the top of the building where we had dinner. It’s the next best thing. If that’s too slow for you, take a look at this almost hypnotic video below of a week’s worth of traffic through the Miraflores Locks compressed down to a few minutes.


Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on each of Kent’s trips as a co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 out of Boston.

High Seas: Prefer Murder or Suicide?

by Iva Skoch on

We’re not ones to fear-monger, but this story was surprising. Thursday’s The Guardian ran a story about the numerous passenger disappearances from cruise ships over the past few years. It turns out that at least 30 people have simply vanished from cruise ships in the past four years.

Considering the large numbers of passengers on cruises annually, and, while very regrettable,30 is not a large number. What’s shocking is how little is done to solve this disappearances or prevent them. Take the disappearance of a woman from a Celebrity Cruise in 2004. On the second day of the cruise, a steward told his boss that the woman’s cabin hadn’t been slept in. Apparently, nothing was done, and the steward continued to place chocolates on the bed each day, through the duration of the cruise. After the cruise was over, the woman’s things were boxed up and removed from the room. And no one notified any authorities. It wasn’t until her family made a missing persons report that any action was taken. The case is still not closed. Not surprising, considering how cold the trail would become..