Seafarer Recalls 110 Days in Pirate Captivity

MOMBASA, KENYA -- Captain Edward Kalendero, 51, commands a skittish crew. While Kalendero so far has avoided kidnapping, many of the nine seafarers serving under him aboard the small coastal cargo ship Semlow have been captured and ransomed by pirates during their years at sea. Semlow herself was hijacked back in 2005 during a mission to deliver U.N. food aid to Mogadishu. Now the unlucky ship and her tense-as-Hell crew are getting ready to sail back into pirate waters, for the umpteenth time. Semlow will sail alongside the HMS Northumberland frigate to carry hundreds of tons of split peas and other humanitarian cargo to Somalia.
Kalendero’s chief engineer for this run is 50-year-old Juma Mvita. He was on Semlow three years ago when the ship was grabbed by 10 armed men riding in three speedboats. The pirates took over the bridge and steered the ship to a small port. “Under the circumstances, they treated us well,” Mvita recalled on Wednesday while preparing for the Mogadishu run on Semlow’s cramped bridge. “We used our own food for while … but they kept us in captivity for 110 days, so we ran short of food and fresh water and fuel. They begin to feed us by bringing us food from the village.“
“They assured us if we behaved, we would be safe,” Mvita added. He stood over a stack of charts depicting the waters around Mogadishu. His face was marked with worry -- as was his captain’s. Despite the heavily armed frigate anchored just across the harbor, the vibe aboard Semlow was bleak.
The pirates who had grabbed Semlow three years ago insisted their beef was with the ship’s owner, and not the crew, Mvita said. “If the ransom was paid and nobody tried to be a hero, we would be safe,” he recalled his captors saying.
Did he believe them? Mvita laughed. “No.”
But after more than three months, the ransom was paid and Semlow sailed back to Mombasa… only to resupply, refuel and head right back to Somalia, with some of the same crew aboard. What keeps men like Kalendera and Mvita at sea when the risks are so great? Simple, Kalendero said. “I need the money.”
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/seafarer-recall.html