While sailing in the South Pacific, I was trying to sleep but it was too hot below decks and went topside aboard my boat, The Mermaid Angel to catch a breath of fresh air. It was a mild night and a milder sea.
I could smell Jasmine and other tropical flower scents being carried to me by soft breezes. Their smell was intoxicating. I began feeling lightheaded as their fragrance swirled up my nostrils and around my brain.
The sea is my home but the smell of these island flowers began to make me think of the beautiful islands that rose from their volcanic origins to decorate the sea, like a beauty spot on a woman's face.
I thought of the long white beaches, massaged by turquoise and white waves and the tall palms moving in the wind, bending and swaying like a women dancing. A woman dancing-- I had been at sea too long! I needed the soft warm body and touch of a woman to ease my restlessness.
It was moon bright and as clear a night as ever I had seen. Millions of bright, dazzling stars, shined down, reflecting like tiny diamonds on the water. The moon was so large it seemed out of proportion to everything else, reflecting golden, mosaic designs across ocean. It was truly a magical night!
Then I heard it. A sound I had never heard before. It was musical but more than just mere music. It had a sad, wailing quality to it. It was a lonely sound, a beckoning sound, human, but not human.
It seemed to be calling me, just me, like it knew who I was and was demanding my presence. I had not had any drink or smoke that night and was completely sober. I began to wonder if the three months I had been at sea was beginning to take its toll.
No, there it was again. It became louder, closer, piercing my ears and brain like sharp pins. I began to think of the siren's call that had brought many a ship to their rocks and then a watery grave, in all the sea legends.
Nonsense, they were just old sea tales. Stories meant to entertain sailors during their long lonely days and nights at sea. If there were mermaids, why hadn't one had ever been caught, or photographed over the years. No skeletal or other remains ever produced.
But what was this sound? What was calling me? I started scanning the sea, from boat to horizon in the direction of the musical chant, with my binoculars. Nothing, nothing... wait, what was that? It was a small atoll, only slightly bigger than my boat. Then I noticed something or someone sitting on the rocks on the atoll.