Another story in the Travel Tales series of adventures and misadventures from our tours..

This is where we spill the wild, wonderful, and typically NSFW stories from our Spirit House tours.

Don't think 'Eat, Pray, Love" our stories are more "Drink, Swear, Regret".

A little background . . . for context.

When we were first promoting our sailing adventure to the Banda Islands I wrote a marketing email that included a throwaway line about old-timey sailors possibly having sex with mermaids.

I was reading a book on mythical animals, and apparently sailors who’d been at sea too long often mistook dugongs for seductive sea-maidens. Which makes sense - after months at sea, the difference between a dugong and a mermaid is about three pints of rum and an active imagination.

Naturally, my plan was to delete the line later, because this line was more for my own amusement and I am not totally unprofessional. Unfortunately, I am also not a “details” person. So I never proofed the email, never spell-checked it, and of course—hit send.

Fast forward to the Banda Islands trip itself, near the end of the voyage. After a few too many beers, Simon (names not changed to protect the guilty) confessed that the only reason he booked the trip was because our marketing material suggested a hook-up with a mermaid.

His wife, up for a challenge, volunteered to slap on some flippers and meet him in the cabin. But Simon, ever the purist, pointed out that if flippers scratched the itch, he would have bought them for her years ago.

At that point I gently reminded him that we don’t offer refunds—but he could always file an insurance claim.

Being in no condition to string together a coherent sentence, I offered to draft the letter for him . . . just part of the service.

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Insurance Claim Letter

Ref: Breech of contract

To Whom It May Concern

I write with deep disappointment (and mild chafing) to lodge a claim on my policy.

My wife and I recently took a Spirit House tour of the Spice Islands and while we acknowledge the right for Spirit House to terminate the tour due to force majeure - and we suffered two of those, their marketing material clearly states as below:

**

Now, I am a reasonable man. I know travel brochures tend to embellish—beaches are never that tropical, not all alcohol is free, and “deluxe cabin” usually means “wall to wall bed and a porthole.”

But a mermaid? That was the sizzle that sold the steak so to speak.

I must confess: I did not book this voyage for the culture, the sunsets, or even the snorkeling. No, I booked for one thing only - please don’t judge me, I'm not into beastiality per se - but Mermaids don’t have legs and, you know, what’s the story down there?

Anyhow, I thought I would be able to answer that question in the name of science and achieve a life-long fantasy ever since my child hood viewing of The Pretty Mermaid. That cartoon really jigged my squid if you know what I mean.

To cut a long story short - the picture on the left is what I was expecting and the picture on the right was what I was offered:

You don’t need to be a lawyer to see a blatant discrepancy.

My wife did offer to don a pair of flippers and meet me in the cabin to assuage my disapointment, but it really isn’t the same thing is it?

Frankly if I wanted that, I could have saved myself several thousand dollars and one bout of seasickness. The fact remains: their brochure promised something wet, wild, and half-human. What I received was flippers, mask and some roleplay.

I acknowledge Spirit House does not issue refunds on this tour but because 80% of the reason I booked this tour was for the above mentioned mermaid activities I would like to claim 80% of the tour on my insurance policy.

Kind Regards,

Simon (surname removed to protect reputation and marriage).

(Director: MasCom - communication outcomes with happy endings)

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A word about MasCom . . .

It is not actually the name of Simon's company . . . but it suits the story.

Somewhere along the trip someone was talking about massages in Indonesia and my Balinese brother-in-law started giggling and babbling something about "mascom . . . you want mascom".

He wasn't really babbling, he was speaking Indonesian but my Indonesian is very basic so it sounded like babble to me and everyone else who was listening.

Simon (not the fish molester), our cooking school chef and someone who had lived for 15 years in Indonesia, quickly translated and it turns out that MasCom was short for "Massage Complete".

You know, a massage that has a happy ending.

We all thought it would make a great name for a communications company and the tag-line wasn't too bad either.

Sorry about that, I know you didn't ask but it is a cultural tidbit that I just had to share.