A CRUISE ship worker has returned to the North-East after the vessel he was working on had an encounter with armed pirates in the Indian Ocean.

Dance host Roger Bell has spoken of how pirates, thought to be from Somalia, got within a metre of the ship, but were unable to board due to barbed wire and water cannons set up to defend it from such an attack.

The ship, the Motor Vessel Discovery, was on a six-week cruise, calling at African states, including Mozambique, Madagascar, Zanzibar and Egypt, before moving onto the Middle East, where it docked in Jordan and Oman, before finishing in Turkey.

The encounter, the latest in a long line of incidents in the area, occurred as the vessel was leaving Mombassa, in Kenya.

“The captain had told us there were pirates in the vicinity of Somalia as we left Mombassa,” said Mr Bell, who lives in the West End of Darlington.

“He changed course as we were going towards the Indian Ocean to avoid them.

“The next morning, I was having my breakfast at about 10.50am. I saw this speedboat coming up alongside us, maybe about 20 metres away,”

said the 68-year-old.

“It came even closer and we could see there were seven men on board. It looked like they had guns.

“They were trying to board the ship. The speedboat had come from a mother ship and the pirates seemed pretty well-organised.”

He said the pirates were stopped by barbed wire and water cannons on the sides and rear of the cruise ship.

“If this barbed wire had not been on the ship, we would have definitely been boarded.

“They had come close enough to see if they could get onboard. They did try.”

He said the crew and passengers all remained calm.

“The captain used to be in the Navy and was in the Falklands.

He saw action there. He had experience of being under fire and felt he could cope with any eventuality,” he said.

“We knew we were in safe hands. There was no panic.”

Voyages of Discovery, the company which runs the cruises, was unavailable for comment.