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What It's Really Like To Be A Mermaid

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By GRETCHEN PARKER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 11, 2008

WEEKI WACHEE - The photographer eyed the tail.

She looked worried as I held it up to gauge … well, whatever qualities one should look for — in a fin.

"That's a small tail," Julie Busch said, glancing without subtlety at the girth of my own, real tail — wider than the average mermaid.

We had been at Weeki Wachee for only a few hours, and already this seemed like normal conversation.

It is a place that is as mythical as it can be. I almost hated to look around the dressing room and see all the tails hanging, organized by color, with the swishy fin parts dangling.

It was like seeing fairies' wings, accidentally exposed.

If you're like me, you'd rather believe the tails are real.

Earlier, as I sat in the sunken theater with retirees and 6-year-olds, I watched the mermaids swirl and sing and smile. They were like beauty queens but better, because they seemed magical, ethereal. It was OK to like them.

While reporting a story about Weeki Wachee, I had been offered the chance to become an honorary mermaid.

I tried to be sensible. I tried to turn it down. But as I watched them spin and dance, beaming their bewitching smiles through the glass, I was entranced.

I wanted to be that.

Soon after, I was in the hands of real mermaids — as real as any mermaids of this world.

"Watch your skin," they warned as I zipped up my tail.

It was a true hazard. I had to press in the left hip to seal the deal. The fin was a tight fit.

I had another worry, too. The bikini top I borrowed from the mermaids seemed imperiled. I tried not to imagine it popping off, slapping an innocent turtle in his soft, green head.

It would be a quick end to my sad fairy tale.

As I tugged and zipped, the mermaids talked of the other wildlife that swims in the spring — ducks and fish with tails that don't have to zip. And once, an 8-foot alligator that slid right across the theater window.

The turtles are always around, though, paddling toward the mermaids as they swim their dances.

From the theater seats, you can see them underwater, heading straight for the dance troupe like tiny little fans rushing the stage.

I tried to stay cool in front of the other mermaids. I wanted to fit in. I acted like it was any other Wednesday morning, as I scooted off the dock and slid into the clear blue water of the spring.

I think it was the water that woke me up.

Allegedly, water in the spring is 72 degrees, the temperature nature sets as it pumps 170 million gallons of water a day out of the cave below.

It felt like ice, though. I felt like one of those penguins in that movie, except less svelte. My instinct was to kick my legs, to stay afloat and warm up.

But mermaids, as we all know, don't have legs.

Mine were frozen into a tail that wasn't serving me all that well. It felt like a giant, heavy block that was about to suck me straight into the cave.

I imagined I would wake up in a dark, cold hole. Full of reporters in mermaid tails.

I tried to point my toes and kick, as Mermaid Stayce had instructed. It was like kicking with a cement block tied to my feet.

She and Mermaid Danielle gamely pulled me, as I clung to a floatie, toward the windows of the sunken theater.

Julie was inside, waiting to shoot photos of me as I either did underwater acrobatics or just held my breath and waited for it to be over.

I had been worried about breathing through the air hoses the mermaids use in their shows. They allayed that fear right away — there were no hoses for me. This would be short and sweet, just long enough for a photo.

Julie waited as the mermaids towed me toward the glass. I couldn't see her.

I used my new, mystical mermaid powers to send silent messages to her: "Be kind. Shoot my tail's good side."

"Are you ready?" the mermaids asked.

On the count of three, we slipped under the water. I held my breath, held my top, blew my hair back and tried to grin.

As I began to relax, something knocked me in the back. It was a turtle.

And it all seemed normal.

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