We departed the Seychelles on a Tuesday afternoon with a northerly heading and a forecast of 15-20 knot winds to and somewhat past the equator. I had anticipated SE winds to the equator then becoming southerly and finally going SW for the next 600 NM and perhaps beyond. The SW monsoon has been particularly strong this year with India getting a record amount of rain so I was concerned about the wind force. Getting weather info in this part of the world is very difficult. The sailing plan was to go around the east end of Socotra Island and stay at least 100 NM off shore to avoid the pirates, which were reported to be in the area. There had been several incidents with many boats being robbed, several shot up with automatic weapon fire and one woman shot. This safety detour would add about 300NM to our trip and increase the windward work in the Arabian Sea, not a pleasant thought. Most current information seemed to indicate that Yemen, who owns Socrotra, had cracked down on the pirates and the biggest problem was now in Somalia, which is unfortunately in a totally lawless state at this time. The decision was made to go in-between Somalia and Socrotra and to do so at night as far away from Somalia as possible with our usual no lights, no radio transmission policy. We would be in contact with another boat several days behind us using single side band transmission which the pirates didn't have, but to be on the safe side we planned to report false boat names and we changed our positions via a pre arranged formula.