
Sea Babies 2 and 3 by Robert Kline
Sea Babies 2 and 3 by Robert Kline
This beautiful Sea Babies illustration is from a collection of Sea Maidens (mermaids), Sea Babies (mermaid babies), Sea Masters (merman), pirates and fairies created by renowned artist and novelist Robert Kline of St. Augustine, Florida. The illustrations are from Robert’s novel The Forgotten Voyage of H.M.S. Baci in which Sir Edmund Roberts describes in his log, his various Sea Maiden, Sea Baby and Sea Master sightings. Please visit each of the illustrations to read about the event in which the character was sighted. The following is a hint of what is written in the excerpt for this illustration:
May brought further reversals of fortune for Sir Edmund Roberts’ extended voyage of circumnavigation and discovery. Captain Constance Daphne returned tart and penniless, her hopes to access her new fortune (the feared pirate Naughty Nat’s old fortune) dashed as no agent of her banking house could be found in either Valdive or the Port of Valparaiso, and so she moped about muttering “Hounds of hell, man and institution both; nowhere to be found when needed and underfoot when not! Bugger the lot!”
It was later, as she stood on the shore with Sir Edmund that an all too familiar ship appeared on the horizon, every sail bent on, a bone in her teeth, her dark brow smashing great bursts of white water along her sides. Captain Constance Daphne snatched Sir Edmund’s glass and brought the charging vessel into focus. “Does fortune play the hussy with me now,” she whispered, the color falling from her face. “It’s my Baci!” “Indeed,” Added Sir Edmund calmly, “I knew they would return.” And they had. The great ship anchored and expectorated a timid delegation to seek out their captain and plead their case with a volley of conflicting versions of why they had sailed off in the first place; pursuit of pirates, a severely localized hurricane, dengue fever, and most amusing: seduction and abductions, ship and all, by a raft load of giant women from the Amazon basin. Constance Daphne’s anger faded with each tale until at last she said, “Enough, back to the ship and make ready to sail,” all the while silently remarking that Pretty Willy’s knotted scarf looked for all the world like an intimate garment from her cabin.
The next day during the last descent of Halley’s patented diving apparatus (before it was ferried to the HMS Baci and stowed), Sir Edmund spied a brace of Sea Babies cavorting in a galaxy of slowly rising bubbles. Gnarly Dan jostled the naturalist away from the glass port to get a better view, prompting Sir Edmund to object, ” Calm yourself man; they are only infants.” to which the old salt responded with venom and disbelief. “Any man who doesn’t love a baby has forgot too much, learned too little or ships a heart cold as a broke cannon.”
Unmoved, Sir Edmund looked to the bell’s open bottom to ascertain the source of the bubbles, but was unsuccessful. The evening Gnarly Dan allowed it was no doubt a “klatch of sea mums sendin’ ‘em up to the little ‘uns to keep ‘em close-like. Each bubble,” he explained patiently, “has a mum’s scent, air so sweet and full a’ love that yer Sea Baby takes to it like a treat.”
He let Sir Edmund ponder that for awhile, drained a pint of warm beer and concluded, “and when yer Sea Maiden gets old and comes near to scratching her name in the log, she’ll journey to a special sea cave and leave her dyin’ breath in some dark notch in the roof, a quite bubble that her Sea Babies will return to when they’s grow’d and sad, maybe, or just missin’ their mum. They’ll breathe in just a bit, to feel her love and smell her scent again, always leavin’ enough to last their own lifetime and they’re never wrong; they’s always some of mum’s love left ‘til the time comes when they leaves bubbles of their own. Ya see, cap, Sea Maidens value love like we does life.”
Sir Edmund’s journal reads:
Two Sea Babies observed off of Quinlan. Scales higher on torso than adults. Postulate they recede with onset of puberty revealing fair skin.
Infans Verde
Lively, playful, long hair.
Infans Azure
Very young, playful, no hair.
May 5, 1833
Gulf of Guytecas, island of Quinlan
This illustration is available for purchase in the following matted sizes: 5″ x 7″, 8″ x 10″, 11″ x 14″ and an 11″ x 17″ that comes unmatted on a piece of 1/4″ foam board.
Purchase prints here