This morning we awoke to see that we were just beginning to
cruise through the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, translated the Gateway of Anguish
or Tears. The strait is only 20
miles wide and on one side lies Yemen and the other Djibouti. I don’t think
much danger (relatively speaking) lies on the Djibouti side since we have
Special Forces of some kind based there.
Yemen is another story. On
neither side was there much to be seen except sand, rock and desolation. I read something interesting online
about this strait, if it is to be believed. The Bin Laden construction company (yes, there is one!)
announced plans to build what would be the largest suspension bridge in the
world connecting the two sides. It
would be 20 miles long. What
occurred to me when I read that was why in the world would anyone want to build
it? I can’t imagine there are
roads in either country or enough vehicle traffic to support such a
bridge. After all, who is going to
go driving in Yemen? Supposedly
it’s like the wild, wild west.
 |
| A lighthouse on the Yemeni coast |
 |
| Yemen from at least 12 miles offshore |
 |
| The tall building to right of center almost looks like a control tower for a small landing strip |
 |
| Some company in the Gulf of Aden |
Anyway, we played trivia at noon. Our team somehow has managed to get into 3rd
place. We are having fun
regardless. The team sitting next
to ours has a gentleman who takes it very seriously. We see him walking around with a huge book called Great
Knowledge from A to Z and he actually seems to be studying it every chance he
gets.
In the afternoon as we sat on our balcony we could see a
couple of villages along the coast on the Yemeni side. They didn’t look like much. We played a
couple of games of Scrabble and then it was time to get ready for dinner. Tonight the theme was Arabian
Nights. Guests were encouraged to
dress in appropriate garb if they chose to. It was surprising the number of people who had apparently
bought long white robes and Arab headscarves and came so attired to the dining
room.
During the night Al woke up around 4 AM after hearing a loud
single pop. When he looked outside
he saw a lot of lights toward the bow.
There was no more noise so he went back to bed. One of our trivia teammates told us at
breakfast that he also awoke then to the same noise. At lunch our next door neighbors told us that she had been
exercise walking up on deck very early in the morning and saw one of the men in
black talking with the Captain and another officer. They were still talking very seriously after she’d made
several laps so she stopped and asked them if something was wrong. The security man told her that early in
the morning a small boat approached and wouldn’t respond to communication from
the ship. Apparently a concussion
grenade was fired (that’s communicating!) and the boat backed off. He said it was a fishing boat. Who knows? We were apparently warned yesterday that many pirate boats
have been sighted in the area so a close watch is being kept.
Well, that’s all for today. Tomorrow is another sea day. Oh, we have been setting the clock forward so tomorrow morning
we’ll be 9 hours ahead of home.
Losing an hour of sleep each night is a bummer!
No comments:
Post a Comment