It's the kind of story all 300 voyagers aboard the Seabourn Spirit yacht will be glad to have lived through to one day share with their grandchildren. Fortunately, this attempted hijack story of pirates off the east African coast has a happy ending -- thanks to the captain and crew of the Seabourn Spirit.

"It was a dark and stormy night..."

Actually, it was 6:05 in the morning when Captain Sven Erik Pedersen told his passengers to stay inside their cabin.

Two twenty-five foot rigged inflatable speedboats full of armed pirates were approaching the 439-foot cruise ship.

One pirate held two guns.

A number of them held grenade launchers and machine guns.

In each boat, there were perhaps four or five pirates.

Captain Pedersen's Seabourn Spirit was 100 miles off Africa's Somali coast when the pirates tried to come aboard.

Some of the passengers were awakened by the sound of bullets.

Others were already awake and listened to the hoodlums open fire with machine guns and their rocket-propelled grenades.

Pedersen told his passengers over the intercom:

Stay inside, stay inside, we are under attack.

Seabourn Spirit 503 Sq. Ft. Suite

Over the loudspeaker they learned that a boat with armed men was coming along the starboard side and that they were to lock themselves in their cabins.

Mike Rogers of British Columbia told CTV Newsnet:

It was about 5:30 in the morning and we were awakened by the sound of what we figured out was bullets ricocheting off the side of the boat.

Rogers said the captain told them: "This is not a drill. We have a boat alongside that appears to be armed. Please get low to the floor and stay away from the windows."

Hoping his passengers would not go out on deck where they could be shot at, the captain then told them to go to the restaurant in the middle of ship where they would be informed and asked to wait.

While a rocket hit a nearby cabin, fortunately, it jammed in the metal balcony door frame and exploded downward. The door's glass shattered. However, no one was injured.

Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer believes an unexploded rocket-propelled grenade still remains on the ship.

The passengers on the sixteen-day cruise from Alexandria, Egypt to Mombasa, Kenya were mostly Americans, as well as Australians, Canadians, Britons and a number of other Europeans.

The cruise is touted on CruiseCompete.com as follows:

The furthest corners of your world beckon you with exotic siren-songs, from half a world away, to experience places from your dreams.

...

Along the Red Sea shores, majestic granite mountains and sweeping dunes enfold Bedouin tents and lost Egyptian temples. These are the exotic dreams of a lifetime, waiting to be made real.

What is not touted is the threat of real-live pirates.

Amazingly, out of the 151 passengers and 161 person crew only one member of the crew was hit by the pirates' shrapnel.

The ship, originally built in Germany, sustained minor damage.

Two of the passengers, Harry & Jan Hufford of Oakmont, California wrote in an email to family, "the captain swerved the ship sharply to the left trying unsuccessfully to ram the oncoming boat and then took off at full speed."

"There are bullet holes at several locations and two of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the lounge at the rear of the ship were shattered by bullets," the Huffords wrote.

Rogers told a Vancouver radio station that the captain tried to run one of the boats over. He said each speedboat had about four or five people on it.

Rogers said the captain told them that he was going to do anything to stop them from getting on board.

And that he did!

Seabourn Cruises spokesman David Dingle said:

The ship's crew immediately initiated a trained response and as a result of protective and evasive measures taken the occupants of the small craft were unable to gain access to the ship.

We are extremely pleased that all the measures worked.

The captain and crew did a fantastic job.

Of course, they traumatized passengers and crew were shocked but no passengers were injured.

Dingle said there was no reason to believe it was a terrorist attack.

This was not the first time a boat has been attacked in the warm Indian Ocean waters off Somalia, but it was the first time a cruise ship of this magnitude came under fire.

Efforts to deliver relief supplies to over Tsunami victims in Northern Somali were thwarted just a few days prior to the Seabourn Spirit's attack.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and maritime officials have warned that Somali waters are some of the world's most dangerous.

Andrew Mwangura, program coordinator of the Kenyan Seafarers' Association, said the attack on the Seabourn Spirit could deal a severe blow to tourism in the region, especially Kenya, which is East Africa's most popular tourist destination.

Referring to the waters off Somalia, he said:

It is a disaster, but now at least people understand that this is a dangerous area.

If you operate in these waters you must operate as if you are working in a war zone.

According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), nearly thirty hijackings have been recorded off Somalia's 1,880-mile coastline since mid-March.

This compares to just two pirate attacks in all of 2004.

U.S. and NATO warships patrol the region to protect ships that are further out at sea in "international waters".

Typically pirates target freighters that carry only a handful of crew members.

The IMB has encouraged ships to stay at least 150 miles away from Somalia's pirate-infested waters.

The Seabourn Spirit came under fire 100 miles off the coast.

This summer, the first U.N.-chartered ship was seized for over three months while on a humanitarian mission to Somalia. 10 crew members were held while the pirates did their best to get the United Nations to pay a ransom.

The U.N. refused to deliver the $20,000 demanded ransom. Fortunately, the hijackers agreed to let the Semlow go after the ship ran out of fuel.

After the Miltzow's release, the ship sailed back to Merka where 400 tons of rice, maize and vegetable oil were successfully unloaded. Nearly 100 days later, 78,000 people suffering from hunger and violence in the nearby Jilib district were finally served.

However, since then, shippers have stopped sailing Somali routes until security can be established.

In 1991, Mohamed Siad Barre, Somalia's dictator was overthrown. Since then Somalia has been without a functioning government. For the past fourteen years, the Horn of Africa nation of ten million has been overrun by warlords.

Perhaps now the Somali government, which has been struggling to establish authority at home and at sea, will get the international help for which they have been pleading.

Andrew Livingston of the National Union of Marine Aviation and Shipping Transport Officers called for a UN naval taskforce to be set up to avert the threat of "huge loss of life or, if a fuel tanker is targeted, an environmental disaster".

Spirits Soar After Seabourn Spirit is Reported Safe

BBC.com reported that the crew of the cruise liner was able to fend off the attack by using an on-board loud acoustic bang, making the gunmen believe they were under fire.

Mark Rogers, one of the passengers aboard the Seabourn Spirit, told AP Radio:

It was absolutely amazing how little panic there was.

When the captain came into the restaurant and announced they had successfully scared the pirates away, the restaurant erupted with a round of applause by all who were inside.

And deservedly so.

Sydney Australia's Gayle Meagher, who was a passenger aboard the ship with her husband Bob, said:

(It was) a little bit more exciting than we planned for.

The Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp., will end its cruise on Monday at the Indian Ocean islands of Seychelles rather than completing its journey to Kenya.

Congratulations to Captain Pedersen and his very brave crew!

Inspire & Be Inspired.

Here's to healthy, adventuresome, soulful, "glad you survived to tell it" living!

~ Jennifer Carolyn King, Rugged Elegance, LLC