what really happened to the arctic sea?

photo found multiple places online, sorry i don't know whose it really is.

in recent weeks, i've found the story of the supposed pirate attack on the finnish-owned, maltese-flagged vessel arctic sea a compelling one. initially, it was interesting because it appeared to be a pirate attack in european waters and the first of its kind in decades.

as the story goes, the ship left finland july 23, loaded with timber. the next day, the ship reported that a group of men, presenting themselves as swedish police, boarded the ship in the baltic sea between finland and sweden. strangely, the only ones they notified of this were the russian embassy in finland, tho' at some point the swedish police were involved. apparently, some 12 hours later, the men left the vessel and it continued on its way. the next report of it was that it sailed through the busy english channel, still hijacked, tho' the story gets a bit hazy.

after that, they switched off their AIS system (an international electronic tracking system that all merchant ships have (go here to see ships live, right now, as we "speak")) and disappeared for more than two weeks, finally resurfacing 200 nautical miles from the cape verde islands off the coast of west africa. a bit far from her destination port in algeria. the russian navy rushed in, "rescued" the russian crew that was onboard and arrested 8 alleged hijackers, most of whom were from estonia, and spirited them off to moscow. word has it that the captain stayed onboard with russian navy personnel and that they are sailing the vessel and its cargo towards the black sea.

the russian navy's keen interest in the case, as well as grumblings from NATO sources, lead one to believe that there was more than a cargo of timber onboard. before loading the timber at the port in finland, the ship spent two weeks in kaliningrad, that important little baltic port that russia kept after the disintegration of the soviet union. i've read rumors of everything from drugs to guns to cruise missiles to nukes. but, i suppose, like with the kursk submarine case a number of years ago, we'll never really know the truth. but it does set the imagination on overdrive. i could definitely see constructing a james bond plotline out of this one.

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took this screenshot of all of the ships in "my" area on that marine traffic website. each of those little colored ship-shaped bits is a ship and if you hover over it (on the site, not on my screenshot), you'll learn the name and how fast she's currently sailing. how cool is that? why didn't i know about this before? it's a very cool website, but i can see that there is no data available in the pirate-infested waters off east africa and through the malacca straits. very smart thinking, that. wouldn't want to assist the pirates. go and check it out, it's really quite fun to realize exactly how many ships are out there. be sure to check out the english channel, it's really crowded.