Mermaid hunting

The idea that I might pay money for the privilege of dunking myself underwater four times a day for 4 days only because SUCBA diving is fun and all tourists like to do it is inexcusably lame. If I am to maintain my my bloated self image as a cross between Gulliver, and a Nietzscheian Superman, (no cape thanks) then finding another reason to go diving rested at the top of my priority list. If I had gone diving simply because 'it's fun' then I would be no better than the mindless masses of lemmings who flock to Thailand to experience diving at its absolute finest. So with the threat of becoming part of the herd hanging over my head, I sought, and then found a solution to my crisis.

I could board a diving boat, eat boundless piles of flaming-hot Thai food, spend every waking hour diving and reminiscing on the beauty of it all if I did these thing in the quest for something greater. So I set out to find the legendarily illusive and seductive mermaid. For generations, sailors have scanned the waters hoping to catch a glimps of these fish-women who have the torso of a young full breasted woman, long flowing hair, deeply seductive eyes and of course the legs and pelvis of a slime-covered and scaly fish. (What these sailors of old hoped to do with the fishy end of a mermaid I cannot say.)

While my 30 boat companions wasted their time marveling at an enormous stingray as she glided along the bottom like an alien space craft before crashing in the Nevada desert, I watched the blue depths for my mermaid. While everyone else on my boat found a sense of perfect calm and security as a giant sea turtle leisurely grazed the reef's fire coral, my frustration began to grow. Then, breaking the surface for air, my dive master expressed something close to religious rapture as he recounted the masses of circling barracuda and the lone leopard shark hunting on the bottom. I wanted nothing more than to scream in frustration: 13 dives and 4 days later my mermaid remained beyond my grasp.

Unlike the searchers of old who longed to find a mermaid, and yet had no comprehensive plan for her, I knew full well what I would do with the fishy end: Sushi!