Since leaving America August 2006, I have traveled to sixteen countries. A great deal has happened. This site is to share my thoughts, photos, music, writings, travel experiences, and developing political/social commentary with you. I hope you find it interesting and informative.
Understandably, people want to know how I connected with the 23 mermaids I met. Of course, running into Corinne was a fluke.
It was late — 2 or 3 am — and I was returning home from a bar/restaurant on Anjuna Beach in Goa. I had been dancing and making new friends, but finally exhausted and ready for some serious sleep, was heading back to my guest house. I was of course alone.
I saw something writhing on the beach ahead of me. A beached porpoise? It was dark and hard to make out what it could be.
As I approached it stopped moving. I pulled out a small flashlight and pointed it.
There was Corinne.
She asked me to keep her “secret”. I did. I didn’t take her photo, looking vulnerable and afraid there on the beach, then post it on Twitter. A couple days later, I showed up at her vacation condo and that was the beginning of this unbelievable adventure.
Now what I’m going to tell you sounds like something a crazy, third-rate author would make up. But sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. It’s so cliché, yet so zany … could I even make up something like this?
From that day forward, whenever I planned to visit some seaside resort someplace in the world, all I had to do was put a note in a bottle, just like the one at the top of this page, and throw it in the ocean.
Then wherever I ended up, a note would either show up at the reception desk of my hotel, or be slipped under my door, telling me the whereabouts and time to drop by. I would go and voilà! There would be a new mermaid, either making me an incredible meal, or opening a can of SpaghettiOs. I have no idea how they found out where I was staying, or how the note to me got delivered. It just happened.
Like I said, all of this sounds like a fairy tale — or a big fat joke — but this is how it went.
It only failed on two occasions, in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I don’t know what happened — maybe the bottle got swallowed by a blue whale or sucked into an intake tube of a luxury liner — but I never heard anything.
So that’s my story.
Curious to learn more about these beautiful creatures from the deep?
As I mentioned before, the ultimate deluxe full-color paperback is available for a limited time (until December 2nd) for 25% off the regular price . . . order it directly from the printer or from Amazon.
If you act immediately, it’ll be there in time for Thanksgiving. Then you have a choice: Watch football on TV for 12 hours or . . . dive into the fantasy world of exotic mermaids!
