Kidnapped Brit couple kept fit by doing yoga and aerobics

LONDON - Yacht couple Paul and Rachel Chandler, who were held by land-based pirates for 388 days, after their yacht was seized off the Somali coast, said they practiced yoga and aerobics to keep fit and healthy while in captivation.

“We did aerobic exercises while the pirates looked on bemused,” the Daily Mail quoted Rachel as saying.

Extraordinarily, both also spoke with great compassion about the Somali people as a whole, in marked contrast to their view of their captors, who they described as ‘evil’.

The Chandlers, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, had taken early retirement last year to sail around the world on their 38ft yacht the Lynn Rival. They were hijacked as they sailed from the Seychelles last October en route for Dar-es-Salaam on the Tanzanian coast.

They were taken inland and driven from one primitive bush camp to another, surviving mainly on rice and beans, and came to believe that they would die in captivity.

Rachel, a former economist, said their worst suffering came when the pirates separated them.

“We spent three months in solitary confinement. There were times of total despair. We thought we would never see our families or friends again,” she said. (ANI)