Over the last 7 days the Severomorsk has been patrolling quietly off the coast of Somalia in the gulf of aden, there has not been much going on only a few contacts, so we have been running only at 10-12 knots and conducting flight ops with the two KA27’s.
Weather has been pretty good nothing really of note sea state 2 and puff clouds although there has been a few swells and wind over nights.
On Wednesday during flight ops we picked some suspicious vessels and our KA27 went in to have a look, it appeared four vessel closing in on a freighter which was around 35 miles away from us at the time.
The KA27 was ordered away from the ships in order to keep the element of surprise and we kept in line with the broadside of the freighter to mask our rapid approach.
Breaking out behind the freighter the exposed vessels soon turned and tried to run, maxing out at 30 knots we fired our main gun to stop them, they continued on and eventually the helicopter engaged one vessel sinking it.
Our guns took out 2 more, before making for the mother ship which is a fishing trawler, we seized and arrested the vessel then promptly sunk it.
Yesterday it was time to refuel so the Severomorsk headed for the RAS box to the north near the Yemen coast, approaching the French tanker we saw that we were not alone.
The Japanese ship of the Abukuma class was breaking away port side after completing a refuel she too is part of the CTF150 group and is patrolling due north of us some 200nm away.
it doesn’t take long to refuel us so we come along side at 0615 and begin the transfer, yes it may seem odd that a Russian vessel is refueling from a NATO vessel but it does happen!
Our new orders are to remain on station until Monday of next week when we will be relieved by another incoming vessel.
The next tasking will be to return to the Mediterranean and begin heading home.