Becoming a mermaid

Formentera, May 2023

Spontaneously, I decided to participate in a course, led by my friend and neighbour Danila, to become a mermaid. In fact, to become one of the first mermaids of Formentera. Danila had just gained her instructor license, given by International Dive Training Agency SSI, and directly applied her skills on us, six excited women friends. Deborah had just returned from Berlin the night before, with lack of sleep and too much work behind, to jump straight into the cold water with me. With leg and feet squeezed in a fishtail and monofin.

It is still too cold to maintain longer than 30 minutes in the water, without a wetsuit. But enough to learn how to breath, decompress the air, duck dive, use fin and core to move smoothly forward, or bending backwords, playing around in figure diving, immersed in the blue paradisiac sea world.

It feels so natural. I immediately shoot off like never done anything else then mermaid swimming. My degenerated mobility radius suddenly does not exist anymore, it’s amazing! Everything works well, besides diving too deep cause of delicate ear situation (lack of balance and former ear infection). The boat from the local diving center takes us back to the port, with happy faces all over the places.

Deborah and I enjoyed a lot spending time with Alejandra, a friend from childhood on Formentera with german/spanish roots and former schoolmate from Debo. We had lost track within the past decades and took the opportunity to get close again. Being like little mermaids in our mid/end 40ties feels brilliant! So good.

Next day, we train various rescue situations in shallow waters and do the theoretical test on the beach. Some of us buy a monofin or mermaid bathing suit, like me, and hang around gaining back a normal body temperature under a cloudy sky. It was more than worth it, the shivering and shaking and I usually take a little longer to get rid of shaking like hell. Parki style. But would not want to exclude a minute of this wonderful weekend experience.

Shaky Shaky!