Following up with Esper

I asked Esper if they would be willing to follow up on their transit through pirate infested waters to India which occurred as their IWAC interview was going live. On their website they have a report of a pirate attack they overheard in VHF range, information on their own transit and their experience in a convoy. They just recently published an overview of Pirate Alley. More information in the form of their regular podcasts and gorgeous photos will be appearing on their website.

Here is their response:

We made it through 'Pirate Alley' and safely to India, though not without incident. Pirate attacks were reported around what I call the 'extended pirate corridor', which takes one beyond Salalah and further up the coast of Oman... all around our intended track! None of us could properly relax until we got half way across the Arabian Sea. The rally organiser, Lo Brust, was in daily contact with the UKMTO and one morning he came on the VHF declaring that the UKMTO had officially confirmed that we were out of pirate waters. And to think we started this rally thinking we had just 500 miles through the Gulf of Aden to contend with!

Both Liz and I would like to thank all officials involved, from the UKMTO, MSCHOA, the many coalition warships, the Yemeni and Omani coastguards and specifically HMS Chatham who invited the rally aboard to discuss piracy whilst moored up in Oman. Knowing that this thoroughly tooled-up warship was on our side was quite comforting!

We now continue down the coast of India, joining a local regatta that takes us to Goa, and finish in Cochin before the monsoon season starts.