penguinopusredux

As someone who's worked as a crewman most rich yachties never venture more than a few dozen miles from port, with a few notable exceptions. Many of the super-yachts stay in specific zones like the Med, Australasia, or the West Coast of the US, and move from port to port.

The rest of the ocean cruising community is largely made up of either retirees or people who cruise on a shoestring, getting by on very little. If you're ever in a port town and want to know where the cheapest eats are go follow the cruising sailors. They're the people getting off the battered-looking 30-40 footers with cluttered cockpits festooned with rusty solar panels and a BBQ rack bolted onto the safety rail.

One such British couple spent over a year as hostages in Somalia with the pirates initially asking $4m in cash, working under the assumption they must be loaded. They eventually accepted $600,000, raised by their kids taking out extra mortgages on their homes and a sizable sum raised by the Somali population in the UK.

Most of these kind of budget sailors steer clear of the area, and other pirate hotspots like the Malacca Strait, where possible. But if you're trying to get through the Suez Canal rather than go the long way around Africa then you're going to have to cross through some dodgy waters, so they travel in convoy and hope for the best.

It is mate, it is.

What's your opinion on the USA FREEDOM Act currently being considered? Looks like some good news for the US but the rest of the world is still out of luck.

One of the windows took a hit and may need replacing.

The NSA revelations have caused a number of US companies to lose business - how long do you think corporations will put up with the damage and will they help force change?