Welcome back to Dead Reckoning. I am Juma Otieno. Last time we drifted with the Mary Celeste. Today we come much closer to home, to the waters off Somalia that I patrolled in my twenties. Between 2005 and 2012 the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean became the most dangerous shipping lanes in the world. Small skiffs with ladders and outboard motors took tankers and container ships ten times their size, and crews spent months at anchor off towns like Eyl while negotiators argued over ransoms. I have spoken to a chief officer who was held for five months and who agreed to tell his story. We will look at how it started, how an attack actually happened, and what the shipping industry and the navies did that finally brought the numbers down. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.