WEEKI WACHEE -- The water is cold, but I'm too nervous to shiver. Instead, I propel my arms forward and think graceful thoughts. Flashes of purple and blue tails from my siren sisters flicker nearby. The surface of the water ripples with sunlight above me, so far away.
I try to kick to safety, but my legs are bound. I'm wearing the tail of a mermaid, but I've never felt more painfully human.
By the time I make it to the top, I'm gasping and sputtering. Rita King, my mentor at the Sirens of the Deep adult mermaid camp on this hot August weekend, slides me a floatation device.
"You OK?" asks Rita, one of the "Legendary Sirens of Weeki Wachee," or mermaid performers from decades past. "Want to try it again?"
We're swimming in a roped-off section of Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, one of the few mid-century roadside attractions left in Florida -- and home to the deepest freshwater cave system in the United States.
In 1946, when ex-Navy frogman Newton Perry discovered the spring amid a labyrinth of sleepy dirt roads, he didn't know it was the entrance to a collection of caves stretching over 400 feet down. But he had a vision: a sunken theater, where people could watch pretty women do water ballet and chug grape soda underwater.
I've waited years for my turn at mermaid camp, ever since I learned about it from Vicki Smith, a mermaid who performed for Elvis when he visited in 1961. Until recently, you had to be at least 30 years old to attend (I turn 30 next week). In the meantime, I've interviewed dozens of mermaids, swam with independent "fin-fluencers" and hosted a panel with the Mertailor, a Netflix-famous performer who has made tails for celebrities like Lady Gaga. In April, I got in the pool for a class with the fifth-fastest mermaid in the world.
None of that prepared me for training as a Weeki Wachee mermaid. For the beauty of the water, or the weight of swimming in literal history. And certainly not for the bravery required to bind your legs like a mummy and plunge into icy water that's as deep, in some places, as a downtown office building is tall.
Weeki Wachee mermaids, the professional ones, hang out underwater for roughly 30-minute performances, breathing with long air hoses Perry developed. The hoses take months of training to master, plus a SCUBA certification.
I have two days to figure this out, with just my lungs.
Loving the Florida fantasy, this seamless illusion of underwater grace, is one thing. Could I shed my human fears and become it?
* * *
Part-water park, part-tourist attraction from another era, Weeki Wachee is perched off U.S. 19 in Hernando County, roughly an hour north from St. Petersburg or Tampa. The ancient waters lure visitors from all over the world, especially on sticky summer mornings. Wild peacocks roam the grounds, hungry for French fries dropped by little kids in rainbow mermaid tails.
This is why most people make the pilgrimage, for the mermaid magic.
On the first day of camp, King leads our pod of 10 students to an outdoor cove next to the underwater theater. We will get ready for our swims here in this staff-only area, with cubbies and a Keurig for post-dip hot chocolates.
There's a row of hooks for us to hang our dripping tails, a sign with swirling letters: "Sorority of Sirens." Fitting, since the only people who get to swim in this part of Weeki Wachee Springs are professional mermaids -- and us campers.
Tuition for the two-day program, a fundraiser for the Friends of Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, costs $575. This includes four swimming sessions per day, breakfasts and lunches, a photo shoot and coaching from mermaids past and present. Camp spans April through September, but tickets usually sell out the day they go on sale in January.
King started training at the springs when she was 17. She performed eight daily shows there from 1964 to 1968, shortly after ABC/Paramount bought the park and turned its mermaids into global celebrities. At 79, she remains a petite, raven-haired force with the posture of a prima ballerina.
Watching her flip and spin in the springs today, so serene and slow that it's kind of cheeky, you cannot tell any time has passed. Underwater, she looks unbothered.
"Sunscreen, everybody!" King says, slathering Dawn dish soap on a pair of goggles to prevent them from fogging up. We follow her down a ramp to a wobbly dock, then shimmy into fins and duck-walk into the water.
Weeki Wachee Springs fluctuates between 72 and 74 degrees year-round, chilly enough to claw past my skin and into my ribcage. The morning sun casts rainbows onto fluttering seagrass and pointy-nosed garfish as long as my shin. About 18 feet below, I recognize a sunken marble statue poking out of the sand. The last time I saw it, I was in the Newton Perry Underwater Theater watching mermaids dance where I am now swimming.
We splash behind King to the center of the spring. The bottom drops off sharply as we go. She points out 15 underwater blue barrels that hold rolled-up air hoses. Deeper down, someone spots pieces of abandoned costumes, including a helmet-like head for the Chester the Sea Turtle character from Weeki Wachee's version of "The Little Mermaid."
It feels like we're in a fishbowl the width of a football field. Soon, we're treading water over a sprawling, rocky canyon.
Weeki Wachee, named by Seminole Indians, means "winding waters," King says. Do we feel that current nudging us? Over 117 million gallons of water gush from beneath the Earth's surface here every day. We peer down at what she calls "the deep hole," about 70 feet below our flippered feet. Smaller than a door, this spring vent is the source of it all.
"That spring's over 37 million years old. When you swim over the deep hole, some people get dizzy," Smith told me in 2021. "The current down there is so strong. You pull yourself down rock by rock, and if you let go, it'll bang you up against the cliffs and toss you around."
We won't be doing that at camp. But it's in the back of my mind as we dive to watch Kathy Brannen, who performed at Weeki Wachee in the 1970s, lead us in an underwater demonstration of what we will learn this weekend. She blows kisses and does the iconic "mermaid crawl" -- arms outstretched and overlapping at the hands, head diving down, body rippling. There's also a side crawl, plus an upside-down flip thing that resembles a pose from a Weeki Wachee brochure.
I have to pop up, gulp air and duck back down before Brannen is finished with even one move.
We break into small groups to practice. I hear laughter, splashing and hollering from the other campers, but it's hard to focus. I'm too worried about not having enough air. I brace myself and sink below the surface, then kick in a frenzy to get back up.
"Try it again, and slower," King says.
Another mermaid from the 1970s, Bev Sutton, summons us from the shore. It's time to get out.
"Has anyone ever died here?" I ask King, clinging to a flotation device as we kick to the dock.
"What? No!" she says. "I won't let you drown."
Besides, King promises, if I get back in later, she'll drink a bottle of Coke underwater.
* * *
Our hair is still sopping as we slip into sweatpants and head inside for an 11 a.m. mermaid show. King ushers us to the front row of the 400-seat theater, which she's reserved for campers. Screens on the wall flash 8mm films showing mermaids from decades ago.
"There's a couple with me in them," King says over the steel drum soundtrack, but only because we ask.
On the screens, her underwater sisters pass each other air hoses and chomp on bananas. We cheer when King appears, beautiful as ever, in the grainy footage. Her hair flutters in front of her orange and pink butterfly wings. Surrounded by fish and a cloud of silver bubbles, she is the princess of the deep.
"That's gonna be us," my fellow camper Sara Hoeber says.
Hoeber, 49, flew from Oregon to be here. As a kid in Northeast Florida, she begged her mom for a trip to see the Weeki Wachee mermaids. As an adult in St. Petersburg, she was part of a movement to save the iconic St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club.
"It's a heritage thing, roadside attractions," she says.
I'm eager for the show to start, to see if I can absorb the performers' bravery through osmosis.
"I'm worried about holding my breath," I tell Hoeber.
She suggests singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in my head to drown out thoughts of panic. Her friend Theresa Badurek, a 49-year-old repeat camper from Tarpon Springs, leans over.
"Once the tail is on, that's just a little more work," she says.
A blue curtain shoots up, and the show begins. A mermaid, perched next to the underwater statue, chatters on a conch shell phone. Another mermaid sidles up to the windows and drifts across. After about a minute, she sips on the air hose.
I know their view is probably a mushy blue blur. Every 15 minutes in that water drags their body temperature down one degree. But it's the job of a Weeki Wachee mermaid to make everything look effortless.
* * *
My clammy thighs resist being shoved into the tight, Spandex-like fabric of a mermaid tail, like trying to wrestle toothpaste back into a tube.
King stands over me on the dock before our second swim, making sure the tail seams aren't crooked. She scolds a Tampa Bay Times photographer for documenting us during this awkward metamorphosis. She doesn't want children to see mermaids half-in their tails, and won't risk shattering the illusion.
The last mermaid to transform, I scoot across the dock on my butt and palms until I get to the edge. Into the water I flop.
It's freezing! The tail is heavy! And because I forgot to rub soap inside my goggles, the lenses keep fogging.
King directs us to the theater windows and shows us a vertical row of screws between panels. We are to pull ourselves down, screw by algae-slimed screw, then side-crawl along the glass like the mermaid who kicked off the performance.
In 24 hours, our families and a camp photographer will be on the other side of that glass.
I try plunging in without my swim mask. King suggests keeping my eyes closed until I dive down to my desired depth, then slowly opening my eyes.
My contact lenses disappear somewhere in my eyeballs and the world becomes a smear. Water blasts up my nose. As I flail, the tail feels like a vice clamping around my knees and feet.
I feel like I'm drowning.
I squint over at King's other student, Katherine English, a roller derby girl-turned-Friends of Weeki Wachee Springs board member and photographer. She arrived with rainbow sparkles temporarily tattooed across her cheeks. English, 49, also brought her own rainbow tail.
"You enjoy some one-on-one time with Rita," I tell her. "I need a break."
Frustrated with myself, I towel off and head into the underwater theater to see what camp looks like from the other side. I pass through a back room with a gaping hole in the floor. There's a tube in it, a water-filled tunnel that leads nearly 15 feet straight down, and then over 60 feet across. This is how mermaids used to enter each show.
As I'm sunscreening for the next swim, King pulls me aside.
"I want you to really feel the water -- no tail, just fins," she says. "Just have fun."
At the edge of the dock, I inch myself in slowly. King has me float on my back. Can I hear that steel drum music under the water? Isn't it nice?
After the tail fiasco, I'm too nervous to submerge my head.
"I don't know what to do with you," she says.
King left Weeki Wachee Springs after she got married and had her son. As she moved out west, she never stopped dreaming about the water.
Eventually she moved back to New Port Richey, where she worked for the U.S. Postal Service. There used to be weekend shows for retired mermaids called the Legendary Sirens of the Deep, and King waited four years until a spot opened in 2015. Since then, she has volunteered at the springs three times a week, scrubbing away algae and checking the air hoses.
After her husband died after Christmas 2021, this is where she found her peace.
Another camper, Michelle Scobie, drifts by and eyes the floatie I'm clinging to.
"Are you having fun?" she says. People keep asking me this.
Scobie, 63, has attended camp almost every year since the program started in 2010 -- before getting a spot became as much of an ordeal as securing Taylor Swift concert tickets. In the early years, before the park stocked tails just for campers, she borrowed them from Weeki Wachee performers in between shows; the mermaids did their makeup.
Scobie has brought her niece, her sister, her best childhood friend and a coworker.
"Even me, I have some days where it's hard, too," Scobie says. "You just have to keep getting in."
On the dock, the professionals are getting ready for their last show of the day. The sea witch drips past us, zipping a track jacket over her spooky leotard. We watch the prince climb to the theater's roof. Later, he waves before leaping off into the spring -- his grand entrance.
Sooty clouds creep into view. A few hours ago, at the peak of my distress, I prayed for a storm to postpone our swim. Now I surprise myself by wishing it away.
Mermaid camp isn't just a place for me to confront my fears. It's where adults -- mostly women in their 40s, 50s and 60s -- can play in this watery oasis like there's nothing weighing them down on land.
Megan Pavelka, 41, made the pilgrimage from Houston, having dreamed of mermaidhood for decades because her mom once worked at Weeki Wachee's Birds of Prey show. She spent weeks breath training in her gym pool.
Tish Gietz, 66, had never heard of Weeki Wachee when she moved to Florida a few years ago, but her house is basically a shrine for mermaid collectibles. Julia Welch, 67, flew from Oregon to splash around camp with her. Their children married each other, and the third time they've hung out was this weekend, braving the depths.
Several repeat mermaids like Kiani Segree, a 35-year-old Spring Hill chiropractor, and Scobie, the Pennsylvania woman who checked on me, packed their own tails, underwater cameras and scale-patterned leggings. Some have waited all year to plunge 20, 30 feet down.
I think of them -- twirling underwater and giggling like teenagers -- and ask the universe to hold off on rain.
We're all in the water -- no tails, just fins. King demonstrates an arabesque, keeping her knee locked and toes pointed.
She has figured out the solution to my underwater anxiety by showing me something I can do: strike the quintessential flirty mermaid pose. Sink down, exhale all the air from my lungs so the bubbles don't block my face, then pop my tail to the side.
We're practicing this when one of the performers from the show -- the little mermaid herself -- asks if she can join. I am briefly star-stuck. She counts us down and we sink together.
We smile at each other, three mermaids past, present and future.
* * *
It's Sunday morning -- picture day -- and we're all getting into our mer-sonas.
"Spread your fins," King commands. "Soft smile!"
English, my fellow siren student, flips onto her stomach under the Sorority of Sirens sign and cradles a conch the size of a bicycle helmet.
"One more with your fish," her husband, our photographer, says. English puts a fake fish between her teeth.
On the other side of our backstage grotto, two women are strapping Segree into a hyper-realistic octopus bra. Hoeber and Badurek are untangling plastic beads. Crown or no crown? Trident or wand?
King is the ultimate siren stage mom, fluffing tails and suggesting poses. "On your side! Turn! On your belly!"
She'd checked on me at breakfast, holding up her phone to show a video of me swimming on the Weeki Wachee Facebook page.
"You look good," she had said. "See?"
King holds each woman's hand as they hop-hop-hop to the photo bench. Gietz is up, and she apologizes for sweating.
"You're shimmering!" someone hollers back.
Something about donning a shell crown and teal eyeshadow has me feeling different. This is battle armor. When we get down to the dock, I fling myself into the water with a new confidence.
King and I practice my flirty pose, and I trust that there is enough air in my body. Then she asks if I want to do a bent-knee dolphin -- the backwards flip thing I feel like I've seen on a postcard.
I follow her lead, dropping down and tilting my head back. Knees locked, my arms windmill forward. I scoop at the water with cupped hands. Before there's time to second-guess, everything swirls upside down -- the statue, the seagrass, the fish and the bubbles all shaken up like a snow globe.
By the next swim, when the underwater theater is filled with children and grandchildren and spouses, I'm ready. (Well, actually, I'm running behind, as usual. You try putting on a tail, OK?)
King is already in the water.
"Your husband is waiting for you," she says. "Swim to him."
I take a deep breath, and there he is behind the glass. I smile so big it pops the seal on the nosepiece of my mask. I wave and blow kisses. I show him my new flip before I lose the nerve.
I decide to be bold and try swimming without the mask. King holds it while I pull myself down the window, screw by screw, eyes squeezed. By the time I open them, I feel like I'm being waterboarded. I can't see my husband anymore, but I reach out for him. My eyebrows shoot up like a worried clown.
As I come to the surface, choking on snot, I remember something Badurek said: "You don't have to be a perfect mermaid."
I put my mask back on and splash over to my mermaid sisters, who have also been showing off for their families.
"This is for all of you ladies," I announce, before trying my best backwards flip. It's clunky and crooked, but they whoop as I emerge.
We all do the mermaid clap, smacking the water with the palms of our hands.
Weeki Wachee Springs State Park is located at 6131 Commercial Way in Spring Hill. Mermaids perform multiple shows daily, weather permitting.
For more information on Sirens of the Deep Mermaid Camp, visit friendsofweekiwachee.com. Spots open up in the beginning of the year, usually in January. Download the free "Friends of Weeki Wachee Springs State Park" app for notifications on upcoming camp availability.
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