"A bit like suicide."

52 days were long Jürgen Kantner and his wife in the hands of Somali blackmailer. Now they are back on the Gulf of Aden. The German sailors want to try with their boat "Rockall" the pirate waters to pass through - in spite of traumatic experiences.

 

Berbera - For people in the Somali port city of Berbera Jürgen Kantner of the "crazy German sailors." "They think that I was crazy," says the 62-year-old with the wild white mane. "They just do not understand what my boat for me means."

AFP
Kantner Jürgen and Sabine Merz in Berbera, the "crazy German sailors"

Just under a year, Kantner and his wife Sabine Merz ever been in Somalia - involuntarily, as hostages of brutal pirates. 52 days long kept the pirates, the Germans in the mountainous hinterland in its violence and did so repeatedly, as they wanted to kill the two. "That was the worst experience of my life, they are constantly intimidated us," says Kantner on the abduction.

Allegedly received $ 600,000 (445,000 euros) ransom before the couple in August 2008 released. However, Kantner and Merz now Somaliland, the internationally unrecognized Republic of Somalia in the north, returned. They want their yacht, the "Rockall" retrieve.

"My boat is my life and I do not want to lose. Pirates, and governments do not take care of me," says the passionate sailor, while he was at the port of the repairs to his yacht recovered. The stocky man sip sweet tea, sit at the table with his wife and a Somali friend who speaks German.

"Sailing - I would live and die"

Kantner does not have many words. "The German officials are angry that I am here," he says, then he has blasphemed the "clumsy-Somali mechanic." The only thing that interested Kantner, his wife and the sea.

"At home I have no more friends, after 32 years on my boat, I lost contact with them. So why should I return to Germany, where I have no one to help me?" Justifies the German. "Everything I own is on my boat. Sailing - I would live and die," says Kantner, reading from his notes and looks over the sea, the Gulf of Aden. Through this strait he must if his "Rockall" is shot again.

The sailors are aware that the Gulf of Aden is currently the world's most dangerous area for seafarers is. Since he and his wife were abducted at sea, pirates kaperten approximately 50 additional vessels. "It's a bit like suicide," he says dryly. "But I pray to God that I was not the pirates grab." Kantner about to buy a gun, "but a decision I have not met".

From the international attempt to warships through the Gulf of Aden to ensure he is not much. It would be very different deal with the pirates: "If you have a catch, then hack his hand. If he tries abzuhauen, then shoot him. Islamic law is the only punishment they understand."

Kantner climbs on the deck of his yacht, on the greasy engine parts and fishing nets scattered. Nor is the "Rockall" unseaworthy, but the sailors already knows exactly what he will do if his next destination, Malaysia, certainly has achieved: a week's holiday.

Kantner himself has doubts whether it will ever come: "I really hope that the pirates do not get me, because this time no one will pay for me and all the pirates are saying: 'Keep him!"