Gabrielle Russon
Caroline Kauffman is a mermaid. With her 30-pound silicone mermaid tail, Kauffman blows kisses underwater to the little girls watching her while mesmerized on the other side of the glass.
A sea turtle, notorious for trying to nibble the mermaids’ flowing hair, keeps a respectful distance this time at the traveling exhibit at Sea Life Orlando Aquarium. Kauffman and the mermaids swim with grace, ballerinas in water.
Behind the fins, though, it’s hard work.
“It looks a lot easier than it is,” said Kauffman, one of the performers and owner of Denver-based Wands and Wishes Mermaids. “It’s very similar to ballet, the training involved and to make it look really seamless and beautiful, and your facial expression. You’re not squinting. Everyone has to learn to relax their faces.”
The mermaids perform blindly underwater since their eyes are open but they can’t make out very much. The kids watching them in adoration? All the mermaids can see in the audience are colorful blobs. It can be intimidating for rookie mermaids.
For their 30-minute underwater dive, the mermaids hold their breath while a tube of compressed air is next to them during the show. No scuba masks here. No wetsuits either. No big oxygen tanks.
Already this year, Kauffman’s growing company of 45 mermaids have performed at about 13 facilities. Their stop at Icon Park’s Sea Life Aquarium runs on select days through May 26.
Kauffman’s mermaids are on the road so much, in fact, once an airline lost the group’s bag and a mermaid’s tail got run over on the tarmac. The airline replaced it.
The women are trained and certified scuba divers in what’s normally a male-dominated diving industry. Their qualifications include being certified in open water scuba diving and level 1 freediving.
The mermaids blow kisses at the tropical fish and zebra sharks, curious, swim by to check them out. They make hearts bubbles for the crowd of children.
The human body isn’t meant to swim upside down and do tricks underwater like this. It floods the mermaids’ sinuses and makes them regularly sick with ear infections.
But that doesn’t stop them.
“We like to show little girls that they can do hard things,” Kauffman said.
