Was doing a trip from Richards Bay to
Turkey during the last months. Beside the thousands of miles upwind sailing I did not encounter any suspicious skiff movements. What I've learned was that the ability to recognize the difference between a
fishing vessel (fishing skiff) and a potential pirat skiff is key. I saw tons of
fishing boats, but never a pirate skiff. I was passing
Somalia in a kind of stealth mode (no lights, no
AIS, not even the
radar was running) and all went fine. In the Gulf of Aden I was sailing in between the
shipping lanes, which was quite comfortable. Encountered some warships but at least once a day a army airplane was flying over and get in touch with us by
VHF. The Red Sea was from a sailing point of view the most tough part due the really strong headwinds and almost no room to sail. Tons of
oil and gas rigs, fishing trawlers and cargo traffic makes it unbelievable difficult, specially as a
single handed sailor... To make a long story short : I did not seen any pirates or similar stuff during the whole 40 day from
South Africa until Suez. For more visit
Lifgun