This week I went to see the people who are building my boat. They are all very nice and professional, and they don’t treat me differently because I’m a young person. They understand my ambition to become a sailor and are interested in helping me do that. I didn’t tell them about my quest to find mermaids because I don’t want anybody else to find them before I do. They think it’s a bit strange that I want to hide my boat catch installation rather than keeping it out in the open, but I didn’t tell them the real reason I want to do that. Mermaids live in the deepest parts of the ocean where they cannot be seen by humans, so I need a boat that is really seaworthy and is able to deal with a lot of huge waves. That’s why I think steel would be really good and that idea was backed up by the fabricators, who said that it’s really strong and a great material to use for building boats.
Most of the boats that use it are fishing boats, and they usually also have snapper racks. Melbourne has a lot of fishing boats, so there are a lot of boats to compete with to find the mermaids. They won’t come out and talk to me unless the ocean is empty of other boats, so before I set off into the ocean I have to figure out a way to clear the area of fishing boats. Mermaids don’t live in the areas that are fished heavily, but they do live near them, which means I have to move about without being spotted. I’m sure if the other sailors saw a random teenager sailing a huge boat by themselves on the open ocean they would probably call the coast guard and get me hauled back to shore. That would totally ruin my mission to meet the mermaids, and I don’t want that at all. Maybe I can find a way to scramble the sonar so that their boats don’t pick mine up.