HOW IT ALL STARTED…

Twenty five years ago, I saw her on a Yahoo inflatable group.  Two meters long, but instead of boring matte black, she was a beautiful glossy clear blue. Intex only made a single limited run of her for Walmart, US back in 2001.

Blown up, bounced on, popped and discarded like a generic pool toy, only the lucky few knew her true value.

Inflatable video sites in the 90s weren’t that kind to these blue beauties as well.

Never did we think the day would come when this lovely inflatable creature would disappear for good. 

As she dwindled out of existence, she became a legend in the inflatable community. The holy grail of pool toys.

Whenever she surfaced on auctions, bids would skyrocket past USD300. The lucky winner got to take his prize home, while others could only look on from afar, forlorn, continuing to hope.

On 14 June 2022, she reemerged, and someone took her home for a smooth, whooping USD930.

Out of reach for mere mortals like us 🥲

Twenty years i searched.

Yahoo groups, IYRU, Twitter, eBay etc.

In my rickety Proton Iswara 1.3L (that shuddered and roared in pain whenever I brought it to 80 km/h), I drove to every beachfront, peeked into every gloomy roadside shop, waded into every Toy-R-Us, Tesco and Giant hypermarket.

Like Galahad, I persevered in my quest. I searched and searched. Hoping to uncover a hidden treasure behind dusty rows of Intex and Bestway boxes. Hoping to stumble upon the fabled Wet & Sun inflatable whale box that was perhaps miraculously abandoned by a visiting expat.

Always, I arrived with hope. Left with despair.

But I never gave up.

Twenty years of waiting. In 2021, trapped at home during the COVID lockdown, I decided: if I couldn’t find the holy grail of inflatables, maybe I could…

….recreate her?

200cm of glossy, thick 0.3mm PVC. Redesigned in a blimp-like shape for maximum huggability and straddling. The BLIMP WHALE. You can overinflate her to that few inches before the inevitable, and take her for a good, hard ride. Squeak, squeal, squeak, squeal…

Fast forward to 2025, after immense support from friends around the world, I took the next step. Gathering design feedback from past customers, I made the Gen 2.0 inflatable blimp whales a reality.

Three new colors: glossy black, clear pink and pure clear.

Bigger, softer and glossier than the gen 1.0s, the Gen 2.0s was a year’s worth of planning and testing, prototype after prototype. The gen 2.0 blimp whales are ready for you to bring home.

If you’ve shared the same longing as me, hoped and dreamed as I had, then let me tell you.

Dream no more.