World Of Tourism

I was admittedly having a pity party for myself this morning. Those mornings that you wake up and everything feels like its going to go wrong. Work was bringing me down, my finances are in a shambles, my friends were irritating me with their moaning and I just felt down right miserable.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to blog about today so as I was surfing the net I came across a story that put my life in perspective. One of those stories that wants to make you hang your head in shame at even thinking for a second that you actually have it bad, because there's bad and then there's BAD.

Eight bodies were found after a small sailing boat carrying would-be African immigrants to southern Spain sank off the coast of Morocco. Seven of the deceased were women, two of whom were pregnant. Three babies and four pregnant women were among the eleven survivors of the shipwreck and most were Senegalese and Nigerian nationals attempting to enter Spain via the ‘back door’. The majority of those on board the dinghy had lived on the streets of Tangiers for up to a year, saving up for the crossing by begging.

I want you to read that paragraph again. Is your life nearly as bad as you think it is? I highly doubt it. It's stories like these that really knock my soul. The fact that human beings have to suffer like this makes me even angrier at how the world is operating today. There are sports players, movie stars, television stars that are receiving ridiculous amount of money in the name of entertainment and these people are risking their lives and the lives of their unborn children for a better life.

It's so incredibly backwards isn't it?

American treasure-hunters have been ordered to handover an estimated £250 million worth of gold and silver coins salvaged from a Spanish shipwreck in Atlantic waters.

The Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration recovered 17 tons of gold and silver from a sunken vessel they code-named the "Black Swan" in March 2007. The Nasdaq-listed company refused to reveal the location of the wreck insisting that it had been found in international waters and therefore beyond the legal jurisdiction of any one country.

But when the record haul was announced Spain came to suspect the treasure had been looted from the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish frigate laden with bullion from the Americas that sunk by the British off the coast of Portugal in October 1804.

Spain branded the Odyssey team "21st century pirates" and sent its navy to intercept vessels owned by Odyssey as they explored the waters around Spain. They seized equipment and records but failed to find the salvaged coins which had already been secretly flown out to a warehouse in Tampa, Florida.

In May 2007 the Spanish government launched legal proceedings with the US courts against Odyssey arguing that the wreck was protected by "sovereign immunity" which prohibits the unauthorised disturbance or commercial exploitation of state-owned naval vessels.

In a landmark ruling on Wednesday a judge at the Federal Court in Tampa found against Odyssey and ordered the treasure to be returned to Spain. Better Luck next time guys!