We enjoy hearing from so many of our friends and family, either by emails, mail, Facebook, or comments on this blog. Many of you comment about how you read our blog, and you ask if we are really on a two year vacation. It may seem like that, because we are having so much fun, with so many new and wonderful experiences. Living next to the ocean has its own set of wonders: at noon today, Shelly and I were eating lunch in the back yard, and watched as a pod of 20+ dolphins went swimming by from south to north not more than 100 yards out at sea. Amazing, considering the last time we saw that many dolphins wild in the sea, I asked her to marry me.
Today, I'm writing to assure you that I have a real, honest-to-goodness day job that deals with a huge problem that you sometimes hear about on the news: Somali piracy on the high seas. (It may sound cynical for me to say, but American media tells you about Somali piracy only when American ships are involved or American lives are lost, as with the Maersk Alabama and the M/V Quest.) This month, in the Indian Ocean, we are coming into piracy's high season: the beginning of October marks calmer seas and better weather for the small pirate skiffs that come hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles out to sea. We've already witnessed an uptick in the numbers of attacks on tankers and commercial vessels in the last week in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia and Kenya. Somali lawlessness is showing a dangerous new trend too, with a British tourist and a disabled French woman both kidnapped recently from Kenyan beach resorts, and held, we believe, for ransom in Somalia. My work, in part, involves coordinating with the US military, and the militaries and diplomats of other countries to adopt effective counter piracy laws, enhance law enforcement, improve prosecutions, expand prisons, and provide effective training for everyone involved in counter-piracy work. We simply must end this criminal scourge. Piracy has huge costs, not only in lives lost and interrupted, but massive economic costs, and terrible psychological consequences for the seafarers who are victims of piracy. You may not know this, but there are over 400 seafarers and more than two dozen ships being held hostage in Somali waters TODAY. If you are interested in the topic, I would encourage you click this link to watch an excellent anti-piracy video on YouTube. Meanwhile, I'm headed to the back yard to scan the horizon for the bad guys! |
| Our back yard anti-pirate perch |
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