Sea Serpents and Mermaids

 

While I spent four years in the Navy, and probably a bit less than 2 years of that actually at sea, I never saw a mermaid or a sea serpent. It has been rumored that the mermaid is

actually a manatee (or, as we used to call it, a "sea cow"). If you have ever seen a manatee, you'd know the sailors that thought it was a mermaid had to have been at sea for a very long time.

 






Now, it seems they know the origins of the "sea serpent" legend. It appears to be something called an oarfish. A rather ugly creature, looking a bit like a Moray Eel but much longer, with some strange tentacle like things attached to the head.

I have seen dolphins playing in the bow waves, flying fish skimming from wave to wave, A number of sea snakes, the eerie iridescence of the natural phosphorescence of the sea, and (of course) seagulls appearing out of nowhere hundreds of miles at sea when the messcooks tossed garbage over the side. But no sea serpents.

Perhaps one must spend long stretches at sea, months at least, and in the right areas to see such things. The longest stretch at sea for me was 47 days and land was often in sight during that period. The Gulf of Tonkin is not all that interesting. Perhaps no sea serpents hang out there.