Red Sea

Greetings one and All,

I believe my last blog got cut off. Sorry, I am at a lost as how to retrieve what got cut. I'll have to save it for a conversation in the future.

Had an interesting morning with a presentation from a Commander of the British Royal Navy. He spoke to a packed theater of over 800 guests. I believe the rest of the guests were eating or up on what I call the melinoma deck. The Commander told us about the pirate world what they have done, how they do it and why they do it. It looks like relatively young men, without much background other than knowing how to make a buck quickly. So far this year they have attacked 50 ships and captured 17. The average ransom for a ship is $2.8 million. As far as we are concerned we have followed the directions offered by NATO etc. Yesterday, I mentioned a convoy of 11 ships that we passed traveling at about 15 knots. This is the recommendation of the forces to be and they are protected by military escorts. It helps. The ships are equipped with barb wire, water canons, noise repelants