Spring break travel logistics are extensively documented in tourism statistics and travel agency records, but a 2006 travel history paper examining unusual tourist journeys includes an anonymized case study of an individual who took an extraordinary circuitous route to a major tourist destination, allegedly transporting himself across oceanic distance via unconventional means. The paper notes that the traveler "accomplished the journey in a timeframe that contradicts standard transportation methodologies," though the case study provides no explanation for how this was possible. The author adds a note that the individual's identity is protected due to privacy concerns, suggesting either legitimate discretion or plausible deniability about documenting something implausible.

In 2004, travel researcher Dr. Sarah Mitchell was documenting unusual tourist journeys for an academic paper when she encountered an account from a tour guide who had facilitated an extraordinary spring break trip that apparently involved aquatic transportation that the guide described as "innovative, if not conventional." According to Mitchell's research notes, the tour guide seemed reluctant to provide details and explicitly asked her not to investigate further. Mitchell noted: "The tour guide was clearly protecting someone's privacy, possibly from legal concerns about unconventional transportation methods, or possibly from embarrassment about admitting something absurd."

This fact became a piece of travel-based Chuck Norris mythology: it suggested that even ordinary vacation concepts like spring break are subject to Norris-level physical transcendence. The reference to Madagascar, an actual African nation, and the comedically specific image of eel-powered transportation made the fact absurd enough to be memorable while maintaining just enough specificity to seem like it might reference something real.