Sent by Dave Ungless, S/Y Sänna 2, UK Flag.

Safe Haven in Yemen

With the many piracy stories originating from the Gulf of Aden right now, I thought it best to add my own views to try and add some sense of sensibility to what is obviously a tough choice for sailing yachts planning to transit the Red Sea in the forthcoming future.

We are a 15m beefed up and modified Bavaria Ocean 50 with a cruising couple crew of two, and we transited the Red Sea from Turkey to Malaysia earlier this year in 2007/2008.

After a very tough passage through the Bab Al Mandab straights into the Gulf of Aden, we decided to avoid Djibouti due to its close proximity to Somalia and head for Aden in Yemen. And we made a very good call in my opinion. We’ve sailed long and hard in various parts of the world and it would be difficult to find a friendlier and more accommodating race of people than the Yemenis. The port is now clean from oil and there is a huge willingness to help to transit yachts. There are good facilities for supplies and fuel with access to the International Piracy Co-ordination centre via local naval and coastguard facilities based in Aden. The officials were friendly and co-operative in most instances.

The harbour is now a safe anchorage and we left Sänna swinging on the anchor for two months under the watchful eye of the highly recommended Omar (he’ll find you) and just about every pirate looking fisherman re-fuelling their vessels just metres away. Nothing was ever lost or touched! “In Yemen, you can be killed over a matter of honour but you will never have anything stolen from your boat”, we were told laughingly by the local Naval Commander. He was sincere in his comments.

We eventually left for Salalah in Oman, stopping in Mukallah for fuel and then heading over to Sri Lanka on the back of the SW Monsoon. We experienced no problems at all but some friends aboard a German Yacht leaving Aden a few days before we actually hit and rammed an unlit boat full of illegal Somalian refugees during the night. It was a traumatic but accidental event.

Nearing Sri Lanka we were consistently approached by evil looking pirates but stocked up on fresh fish, coconuts and a delicious jelly yoghurt in plastic pots. After a dozen or so encounters we were entirely relaxed about their presence and managed to lose our own stock of soggy biscuits purchased en-route in Eritrea.