The Call of the Sea

This past weekend, there was a mermaid convention in Las Vegas. Billed as the largest mermaid gathering in history, this convention pulled in around 800 participants from all over the world. News media covered the event, including NBC and USA Today. Apparently, there is a large mermaid population out there, probably most who have learned to survive somehow out of water the majority of the time. I saw some pictures from the convention and could sense the excitement. Step aside vampires…mermaids are pop culture’s latest rage!

All this mermaid commotion got me thinking about the presence of merfolk in Second Life. I confess to being a part time mermaid myself. It is fun to don my tail and AO, and swim the waters of Second Life. There is a graceful, flowing movement you feel when gliding through the water. It is fun to sneak up on unsuspecting sailors and see their reaction. But mermaids are a discreet species and can be elusive.

There are many places devoted to providing beautiful, secret, underwater swim areas. Unless you purposely look, you might be surprised to find there is a whole underwater culture that is thriving. You might also be surprised that even the Lindens have placed beautiful and unexpected underwater reefs, fishes and shipwrecks in the Linden seas.

Have you ever noticed small black areas on your mini-map when out on Linden water? When you see those, look downward. It usually means there is something of interest to see underwater and the larger the black area on the mini-map, the larger the underwater area is to explore.

So much of our experience is SL is based on fantasy. Why not experience that fantasy as an exotic and beautiful mermaid…complete with long flowing hair and beautiful fins and a tail?

If you would like more information about the mermaid life in Second Life, I suggest you contact the Gold Mermaid, Cynthia Maine, or join the Safe Waters group.

If you have a favorite underwater mermaid area that you would like to share…leave a comment or IM me in world. It would be fun to feature them in a future blog post!

The Ghost Ferry

In his never ending quest to turn me into a sailor, Karson told me about a sweet little freebie sailboat that he acquired the other day. It is called a Flying Fizz. I already have one in my (vast) inventory, but mine has been unused for probably three years and it is not the latest, greatest version. Yesterday I decided to go get my own copy of the Flying Fizz so I used the LM I had and ended up at a yacht club on the Hollywood sim. There was much to see and I became engrossed in checking it all out.

The Blake Sea Ferry aka the Ghost Ferry!

Suddenly, there came an announcement in local chat that the Blake Sea Ferry was about to take off and was heading towards Barbarossa. I made a quick decision to go along for the ride. I went to catch the ferry, only to discover that it was pulling away from the dock.  I ran after it, shouting “Wait! Wait for me! Wait!!”  No one heard me and it kept going.

Skipper Jeanne at the helm of the Ghost Ferry

Desperate to not be left behind, I took a flying leap and landed right on the boat! I was proud of myself, until I discovered that not only had I landed on the ferry, but I was also now the skipper! Let me tell you, this ferry is a big boat and I’m not an experienced skipper, so I was a little daunted. But I thought, well, if they have enough confidence to have me be skipper, then ok, I’ll go for it.

I looked around and it dawned on me that I was the only one on board. I also realized that I wasn’t really steering this boat. It was being controlled by ghosts. How do I know it was ghosts? I saw the sea spray from the bow. When the boat would dip down and the water slapped against the front of the boat, the spray was little ghost images. I’m quite sure these were mirroring the ghosts aboard the ferry.



A near miss with a sailboat!!

 I think they were friendly ghosts, so I decided to stay and see what would happen. The boat went along merrily and moved slowly through sim after sim. We drove through a sailboat regatta…I closed my eyes hoping we wouldn’t hit one. Well, I confess, I did take a peak and we seemed to somehow maneuver through the sailboats without incident. I drew a sigh of relief.


I started to relax and enjoy the sights. We went past Crow’s Nest in the Blake Sea. It is a huge lighthouse and I think has a bit of history. We passed Spyglass and I thought that looked interesting too. I was hoping I might get a chance for a better look, but the ferry kept on moving forward.

The Crow's Nest Lighthouse

I learned something on this trip. I think the Blake Sea has its own Bermuda Triangle. Why do I think that? Because as the ferry crossed over into the Sitace sim, I was suddenly and unceremoniously dumped out into unknown waters. The ghosts kept my eyes on the ferry…I was unable to look away. But my avatar body was nowhere to be seen…probably in some black sea hole somewhere. Try as I might, the ghosts had control of me. The only thing left to do was relog.

When I came back from relogging, I chased after the ferry. I could see it had reached its destination at Barbarossa and was docked there. I saw several people on the island. I shouted out to them “Don’t board that ferry…it is haunted!” I think they heard me and no one boarded the ghost ferry as it pulled away from the dock and headed off for its next destination and unsuspecting passengers.