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Pirates. Rockets. Terror. What a cruise

"I was scared, I was very scared," says Floridian Jean Noll of the attack off Somalia. She was far from alone.

MAHE, Seychelles - Modern-day pirates who attacked a cruise ship off the coast of Somalia grinned as they aimed grenade-launchers and machine guns at the deck and staterooms, some passengers said Monday, recounting the ordeal after safely docking in this Indian Ocean archipelago.

A Florida couple was among those on the Seabourn Spirit , which escaped by shifting to high speed and changing course - and using a sonic weapon that blasted earsplitting noise in a directed beam.

"I was scared, I was very scared," said Jean Noll of Nassau County. But her husband, Clyde, said the experience was not likely to deter them from enjoying another cruise.

"We cruise all the time," he said.

The Seabourn Spirit had been bound for Kenya when it was attacked by the armed pirates Saturday, about 100 miles off Somalia's lawless coast.

"I tell you, it was a very frightening experience," Charles Supple of Fiddletown, Calif., said by phone.

The retired physician and World War II veteran said he started to take a photograph of a pirate craft, and "the man with the bazooka aimed it right at me and I saw a big flash.

"Needless to say, I dropped the camera and dived. The grenade struck two decks above and about four rooms farther forward," he said. "I could tell the guy firing the bazooka was smiling."

The gunmen never got close enough to board the cruise ship, but one member of the 161-person crew was injured by shrapnel, according to the Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp.

The vessel's 151 passengers, mostly Americans with some Australians and Europeans, were gathered in a lounge for their safety, said Bruce Good, spokesman for Seabourn.

After docking at the Seychelles, passengers boarded two buses for a tour of two of the resort islands and reporters were kept away. Most passengers were to continue from the Seychelles to Singapore, company officials said, although some who planned to tour Mombasa were to fly there today aboard a chartered plane.

Monday, the cruise line discussed the sonic device that helped ward off the attack.

The Seabourn Spirit had a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, installed as a part of its defense systems, Good said. The LRAD is a so-called "nonlethal weapon" developed for the U.S. military after the 2000 attack on the USS Cole off Yemen as a way to keep operators of small boats from approaching U.S. warships.

The military version is a 45-pound, dish-shaped device.

Devicemaker American Technology Corp. said earsplitting "bangs" were directed by trained security personnel toward the pirates. Its shrill tone is similar to a smoke detector's, only much louder. That, combined with ship maneuvers, caused the attackers to leave the area, the company said.

Relieved holiday-makers praised the ship's captain for foiling the pirates, but some said they were lucky to escape with their lives.

A woman survived an explosion in her stateroom simply because she was taking a bath at the time. Others flung themselves to the floor to avoid bullets that were zipping through the ship, Charles Forsdick of Durban, South Africa, told Associated Press Television News.

Bob Meagher of Sydney, Australia, said he climbed out of bed and went to the door of his cabin shortly before 6 a.m. after hearing a commotion outside.

"I saw a white-hulled boat with men in it waving various things and shooting at the ship - at that stage it appeared to be rifle fire," he told Australian radio.

"My wife said, "Look, they're loading a bazooka,' which we later discovered was called an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) launcher."

"There was a flash of flame and then a huge boom - a terrible boom sound," he said, adding the grenade hit about 10 feet from where they were.

The weapons caused minor damage to the 440-foot-long, 10,000-ton cruise ship, which had been at the end of a 16-day voyage from Alexandria, Egypt.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Monday that the attackers might have been terrorists. Others said the attack bore the hallmarks of pirates who have become increasingly active off Somalia, which has no navy and has not had an effective central government since 1991.

[Last modified November 8, 2005, 02:15:36]