IT was 1pm on a sparkling day on the high seas of the Indian Ocean. All had gone well since the bulk carrier Zhenghua 26 had left Sudan after delivering port equipment to France and Turkey.

Two days earlier Captain Liu Tongqiao, and his 32-man crew had left the Chinese naval escort protecting international shipping from Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa. They were on their own and on alert.

They had good reason for caution. Piracy is on the rise worldwide, mostly by Somali pirates operating off the Horn of Africa.

Last Tuesday Somali pirates murdered four Americans on a yacht they had captured in the waters off Somalia.

Piracy is soaring. Last year there were 445 pirate attacks worldwide, the highest so far; 53 ships were hijacked and 1,181 people taken hostage, according to the International Maritime Bureau anti-piracy watchdog.

Most attacks and hostage-taking were carried out by Somalis. Today they are estimated to hold around 30 vessels and more than 700 crew of various nationalities.

China is part of an international task force protecting shipping in treacherous waters.

But on January 21, the Hong Kong-registered Zhenhua 26, owned by Zhenhua Shipping Co, was far from any help.

"We knew piracy was rampant in the area and I was pretty nervous when we spotted two motor boats carrying 10 pirates, all of them armed with automatic weapons," said 38-year-old Captain Liu.

"After all, a real attack is different from anti-piracy drills," he recalled in a recent interview with Shanghai Daily after his safe arrival at home port, Shanghai's Changxing Island.

The second mate spotted the pirates first, Liu sounded the alarm, 28 seamen wearing bullet-proof vests took up their battle stations on each side of the bridge to repel the pirate attack.

First the pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the port side - it shattered a lifeboat - then the attackers sped to the starboard side and pursued the vessel. They came closer, and fired more RPGs and heavy automatic weapons, leaving pockmarks in the hull.

The Zhenhua 26 and crew have no guns or artillery, but they had other weapons and resources.

The crew responded by hurling Molotov cocktails - more than 200 beer bottles filled with banana oil and containing a lighted fuse. They also hurled chunks of iron, piled on deck for just that purpose, to be used as missiles. And they set off deafening firecrackers.

Liu used another anti-piracy device - two heavy nylon cables set up at a distance along each side of the vessel, keeping pirates from coming closer and tangling their propellers if they got too close.

On the port side, one pirate boat's propeller was snagged and fell off, the boat listed and one of the pirates fell into the water. Though the craft was disabled, the crew kept firing, as did the other boat's crew.

The counterattack involved 28 crew members (four stayed at the helm), following Liu's orders to shift around and use different weapons and strategies, depending on the pirates' movements.

On the starboard side, the other boat kept pursuing the carrier, firing rockets and artillery. The nylon cable prevented it from coming closer. Then the boat slipped out of sight for around 20 seconds and approached on the port side as close as possible, all pirates firing. The crew fired back with homemade weapons and after an furious battle, the boat fell away and the pirates gave up the chase.

It all took around an hour. None of the crew was injured.

It was the first pirate attack on the Zhenhua 26, but in December 2008 the Zhenhua 4 was attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

Since then, the company has developed anti-piracy strategies and equipment, like the nylon cables, and staged regular drills to fend off pirate attacks.

None of its vessels carries guns, but all bulk carriers have homemade weapons, like beer bottles, metal missiles, flares and firecrackers. The idea is to create a din and suggest an immense amount of resistance and firepower.

All vessels have a safe area that can be locked off in case pirates board. Crew can take refuge there so they are not taken hostage. The area is stocked with food and water for a week and equipped with GPS and communications gear.

Shen Zhang, deputy general manager of Zhenhua Shipping Co, said the Indian Ocean is infested with pirates and shipping companies are taking extra precautions. Satellite telephones allow the crew to get in touch with naval escorts in case of emergency - they can advise on actions and sometimes aircraft and helicopters can be sent to the rescue. But once a vessel is in the hands of pirates, it's almost always too late - the issue is no longer defense, but ransom.

Early years

Liu was born in the countryside in the coastal city of Lianyungang in Jiangsu Province and after high school in 1993 he enrolled in the Nanjing Shipping School for merchant seamen.

"At that time it wasn't easy for a student from a rural area to be admitted to college, so I didn't have much choice about my future job," Liu said.

But he loves the sea and believes through nautical skills and hard work he would rise to captain.

After two years in the shipping school, he took a seaman's post on a container ship traveling between Lianyungang and Hong Kong. He was promoted to third mate and then second mate, finally getting his first mate's license from the Maritime Safety Administration. He worked as helmsman for several shipping companies before going to work for Zhenhua Heavy Industry's shipping company five years ago.

"Setting sail for the first time was awesome, since we weren't able to do that while we were in school," he said.

Liu, who has a wife and two children, bears a heavy responsibility; he must be constantly on the alert, focused on the safety of his ship, his cargo and his crew, considering all contingencies.

Though the captain never rests, life at sea can be monotonous for seamen. They can workout in the ship's gym, watch DVDs and use their laptops.

When in foreign ports, Liu calls his family and buys presents for them. He said he was awed by the scenery in Australia and New Zealand.

Merchant seamen usually take around three months' vacation for every nine or 10 months at sea or onboard. In port the crew often stays onboard to conduct maintenance and repair.

Liu, who lives in Lianyungang City, would like to spend more time with his 10-year-old daughter and three-year-old son and watch them grow up.

"I was lucky when my first child was born - it was one day after I came home on leave, but I was in France when my son was born," he said.

He said his family would like him to stay on land in the long run but the captain said he doesn't know where the future will lead. At this time, he doesn't know his next port of call.

"I have no immediate plans," he said. "Everything depends on the shipping schedule and as long as I am captain I will do everything possible to do a better job."

It doesn't get much better than fighting off pirates.

China Fights Piracy

Since December 2008, China has sent 20 warships and 18 aircraft to protect shipping of all nations in the seas off Somalia. The eighth deployment of the naval escort fleet left Zhoushan in Zhejiang Province for the Gulf of Aden last week.

Chinese ships have escorted more than 3,400 foreign and domestic carriers and have rescued 33 ships from pirates' attacks.

Earlier this month, a Hong Kong-registered dry bulk carrier was harassed by small boats in the Red Sea. The ship, with 22 crew, was sailing with a Chinese naval escort and the small boats fled.

In October 2009, De Xin Hai, a 225-meter-long bulk carrier operated by Cosco Shipping Co, China's biggest shipping company, was hijacked 700 miles off Somalia and held for two months.

The owner and insurance companies are reported to have paid US$4 million for release of the vessel and 25 crew members.

The case, like the hijackings of other countries' ships, aroused controversy over how to deal with the growing problem of piracy and whether paying ransom is the best way.