Preparing to say goodbye?

I'm recovering all my stuff from all over the place. Spent a good part of the day going to a system 24 jumps out, only to discover that all it had was my noob ship and it's crap equipment. Memory, memory. ... :( 24 jumps back to collect my first frig instead. Assembling everything now in Amarr space. Deciding to take the jump to reapproach my other corp or not... Risky, no return thingie mefear. But anyway, I'm moving out - if there is to be no action, I'd rather have it solo rather than as a drowned rat in an overstuffed corp. Still I've got a new toy to play with during my stay - an industrial. Impressive specs too. Bye bye safe empire? We'll soonish know.

Late last night I stumbled into a gatecamp when trying to get to my - now probably slightly cobwebby - home. My plan was to bring Wooly Elephant into a lowsec system, unload my smaller boats there and start moving things down home. So I docked in the nearest highsec system, unloaded one of the boats and checked my star maps. WTF? 14 ships down in the last hour? Here? It's usually quiet here. OK, no way of getting through here I think, especially not with Wooly E. Move on to the lesser entry point. Same dance, doc, unload, check map. Hmm, not as bad, 1 downed ship I can live with, doesn't mean it's at the gate. Weird there is a gazillion pilots in the system though.... it's usually fairly quiet here as well, although this is a slightly more risky entry system. But what the - recon time. In my smaller boat I went to gate, it all started with the fairly obvious giveaway of a very obvious pirate spy on the empire side of the stargate (note to pirate corp - do put a trainee as spy, it's not so bleedin' obvious what's going to happen) sitting near the gate but at least moving away from it to give the temporary impression of someone leaving rather than camping. What the f... I jumped, and the few moments of blackness lifted to reveal - the entire overview filled with pirate ships, drones and their ilk. Pick a station at random and get the fuck out to it. Close shave there. Wonder who they were, in hindsight - it might have been these guys who camped the first system, bringing the stats way up. Could have been as safe to go through there as it usually is...