Serenity

No never............but I've been through the Corinth Canal a couple of times, which is an "interesting" experience. It's very narrow..!!

Never did but saw photos, seems a challenging thing to pass. In my times I passed Suez on 3 occasions, all clear and quite pleasant experience. But our tanker routes passed regularly the Guinea gulf, and by then it was already problematic. We had weapons on board. On my command we were approached twice, our guys went on deck showing we were armed and pirates moved away to easier targets I guess. Not feeling comfortable afterwards… so very glad to be retired as I know it got a lot worse in the following years till nowadays…

The Royal Navy used to keep a ship almost permanently in the Gulf area at one time, but defence cuts ruled that out many years ago. We also used to proved some our flagged ships with armed personnel.........but I think that has also been stopped. So sad that these sort of things are even needed..!!

I think piracy is getting worse and paying ransomes for captured ships, the crew and cargo is pretty much factored into the insurance system nowadays!

Schön minimalistisch!