Pirates Are Real

October is the time of year that many of us think about and watch movies about pirates. Our children dress up as pirates and have pirate parties which can leave many people wondering: Are pirates real? The short answer is yes! Pirates have dated back to the earliest shipping times and the truth is that pirates are a very real part of the international cargo shipping trade today. Not the eye-patch wearing, scallywags that we see in the movies or use as models for our costumes, but rather more like the AK-47 toting Somalis who sail the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean looking to add to their loot. Every year, tens of thousands of dollars are traded as ransom for shipments that are trying to make their way across the globe. The most recent major news story was that of the Maersk ship that was hijacked in this region and the ship's crew was in severe danger. Not only were the pirates heavily armed, but they eventually took the captain of the ship as their hostage. It took the US Navy Seal Team 6 and their precision training to save the ship's crew from the danger they were facing. As much as the old idea of pirates has been romanticized in recent decades, the pirates of the 1700's were in fact just as menacing as they are today. Although most international freight shipping companies have not had to face the Blackbeards of today, there is still a threat to those shipping cargo containers to Somalia and other countries in that region.