Pirates

While writing this post, I learned about inverted narrative structure. This is when you tell the reader the conclusion at the beginning of the story and then go back to fill in the story that got to that conclusion.

I found plenty of information about inverted narrative structure in my Google search. For writing a novel, Samantha Harvey states that inverted narrative structure “puts emphasis on tracing back what has seemed untraceable. ” And “in the inverting and thwarting of my hopes and readerly impulses, there emerges in my reading experience something which is deeper and more interesting than the mere desire to know what happens next, and in the desire for what happens next to give some form of closure.”

When we teach business writing, we use a similar structure. This is called an inverted pyramid structure where the most important information (the conclusion) is put in the first paragraph. Journalists often use this style, and its benefits can include improving comprehension and decreasing interaction costs.

When I started writing this post, I had a different reason for wanting to use this pyramid or inverted style for this post. I wanted to start with the bottom line to alleviate any anxiety among readers of the post. So here is the conclusion: Our ship has now left the zone where pirates are a threat, and we are all safe.

Now the narrative:

As we crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Brazil, we knew we would make a stop in the Atlantic Ocean at Mindelo, Cape Verde on March 16 (Day 61). Before reaching Cape Verde, we received a two-page letter:

There were crew drills. We needed to close all our shades and keep the lights low at night. We were now aware of the potential risk of piracy starting after Cape Verde and stretching all the way down the African Coast to Namibia.

The passengers were not trained how to respond in case of attack. Instead, crew will tell us what to do in the case of need. We would go into the corridors (away from the windows and wait for a crew member to tell you what to do). We probably would be advised to get low onto the floor because the ship would employ evasive maneuvers. Here is page two of the letter we received.

Some new “passengers” got on in Dakar, Senegal and we learned that Oceania had hired a high-risk security company of presumed former Navy-Seal-types to ride with us to Namibia. These men (yes, all male) came on and mingled with the passengers. Not sure the purpose of that because they did not look like a typical passenger. They were part of the protection team brought on during our transit in the high-risk security corridor. We think there were four of them.

There are companies that specialize in providing assistance in these high-risk areas. Here is just one I found but I’m sure there are others. I presume their support includes training, external support and communications, weapons, and probably many other things.

We were also told that in this corridor (which for us was the whole way from Senegal on March 18 (Day 63) to Namibia (March 31) was protected in some way by the U.S. and British Navy. I didn’t get a full picture of this, but here is at least one article I found about this.

The passengers got used to the idea that there was a risk, but we were assured that pirates would be very unlikely to attack a cruise ship, so the risk was low. And, all measures were being taken for our safety.

Then, we learned that pirates had taken a freighter in the Gulf of Guinea near where we were at the time. This piracy took place on Saturday March 25. The ship was a Danish oil tanker, and sixteen crew members were taken hostage. The ship is out of communication. Latest news, as of the date of this posting, is that the crew members are still being held hostage (as far as we know).

Reports of this incident, gleaned from the news reports, were spread by word-of-mouth by fellow passengers and we can only send our best wishes to those crew members for a safe outcome.

Our high-risk security has now left the ship and the pirate risk for our ship is now low. However, piracy is real in this part of the world. I feel relief to have emerged from this high-risk zone. In addition, I have very sober feelings about all in this world today who cannot just travel through a corridor and emerge into relative safety as we did.