Former Les Quennevais School pupil Chelsea Etienne is now waiting for the pictures to be published in PlayBoy magazine.
She swapped the temperate climate of Jersey for the sandy, tropical shores of the Indonesian island and set up her own business selling mermaid-styled fins online last year.
And since Miss Etienne, who creates the sequinned fins by hand and sells them worldwide through her website, set up the company, the business has gone from strength to strength.
After a chance meeting with a model and director for PlayBoy in a cafè in Bali earlier this year, the magazine, which was founded by multi-millionaire Hugh Heffner, contacted the Jersey entrepreneur about using her creations.
‘I met the model and the director in a café in Canggu and they were talking about mermaids, and the owner of the café said I make the fins. It was a pure coincidence,’ said Miss Etienne. ‘I’m really excited about it. I just have to wait now for the photos to be published.’
Miss Etienne said that her idea to start the business and interest in all things mermaid was sparked when she met her best friend, Chelsea Maltese from California, while teaching English in Bali in 2012.
‘I was working in Bali and Chelsea had a fascination with mermaids,’ she said. ‘We both ordered mermaid tails from Australia and Germany and we started to take photos of ourselves.
‘Everyone loved it here, so we had a dream to open a swim school, but the land can be a bit risky to buy here, so I thought it would be better so start selling them wholesale online before making a bigger investment.
‘They are hand-made, sequinned and come in various colours. Any confident swimmer can use one.’
The Islander is now also offering snorkelling trips to neighbouring islands using her home-made fins. The former Highlands College student added that she loves her life in Bali and now considers it to be her home.
‘Out of anywhere I have travelled in the world, I only ever miss Bali,’ Miss Etienne, who is taking classes to learn Indonesian twice a week, said. ‘It completely feels like home.
‘I loved living here in 2012 and 2013 and missed it every day when I went back to Jersey. It is hard sometimes knowing I could probably make triple the money, but I would rather choose lifestyle over money.’
