That Time I Was Forced Into Piracy ...

me and Captain Ali

After seeing the dhows sailing around our hotel in Pongwe Beach and cruising in the harbor at Stone Town all week, we were keen to sail in one. We made arrangements with Captain Ali from our hotel to take one of the hotel's resident dhows out for a sunset cruise on our last evening in Zanzibar. In retrospect, one should never wait until the last night of a trip to do something on your must-do list of things you really want to do while you are on vacation. I know this. I made that rule up. But I thought it would make a nice farewell memory on our last night in Zanzibar. Well it did, but not for the reason you think!

We made arrangements to meet Captain Ali on our beach at about 4:00 and the three of us all proceeded to take the short walk together on the beach over to Pongwe village to launch the boat. When we got there, the captain told us to wait for him on the beach for a moment while he ran into the village for something. Okay.

He returned about twenty minutes later and informed us of the bad news. Some sneaky boys from the village had absconded with the dhow that we had reserved to take some Italian tourists on an ad hoc spending-money-making snorkeling trip. Did we want to go out on the motor boat instead? Uh no. I want to sail on a dhow.

I have to admit at this point I got pretty pissy and I started reenacting one of my favorite scenes from Seinfeld. You know the one where they go to the car rental counter only to find that the reservation they had made did not really hold a car reserved for them.  

Jerry: I don't understand. Do you have my reservation?
Rental Car Agent: We have your reservation, we just ran out of cars.
Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
Rental Car Agent: I think I know why we have reservations.
Jerry: I don't think you do. You see, you know how to *take* the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.

Well it worked. Captain Ali came up with an elaborate plan to take the motor boat out to the coral reef where the boys had brought the Italians snorkeling and commandeer the boat back from them. We were going to be pirates!

When we got to the reef we found the two dhows anchored with the snorkelers in the water. Captain Ali dropped anchor on the motor boat too, and to our surprise, he dove into the water and swam over to the two dhows leaving us all alone in the motor boat.

He tried to convince the little would-be pirates to surrender the dhows willingly, but one of the boys was having none of it. He pulled up the anchor on his dhow, hoisted the sail and escaped with a couple of the snorkelers still on board.


The second dhow was not so lucky. Captain Ali dragged the dhow over to the motor boat like Gulliver did with the Lilliputians in Gulliver's Travels.

The Italians got off the dhow and climbed into the motor boat and were very apologetic about the whole "misunderstanding." They clearly had no idea that the boys had stolen the boats out from under us for their nefarious snorkeling scheme.

We got in the dhow just before sunset with Captain Ali at the tiller and one of the former pirates manning the sail.

Vince and one of the pirates

I really had to resist the urge to say to him a la Captain Phillips, "Look at me. I'm the captain now."