And then there’s the 15-pound mermaid tail that performers have to wear, which zips up the side and binds their legs together. “You have to swim like you only have one leg, instead of two,” McConnell says. “Which isn’t as easy as it looks.” Making it look easy is what separates career mermaids from the amateurs. “You don’t want to do a swimmer’s stroke when you’re being a mermaid,” she says. “You can’t look like you’re struggling down there.” Performers spend countless hours rehearsing a highly stylized swimming technique called the Mermaid Crawl. “It’s about being graceful and looking natural,” McConnell says. “You learn how to swim with pretty hands.”
Making sure your hands grip the water in an aesthetically pleasing manner isn’t the first thing most people think about when they’re 16 to 20 feet below the surface in freezing water. But it is for a Weeki Wachee mermaid. Then they have to remember the choreography of their routine, which includes underwater lip-syncing and synchronized swim-dancing, all while trying to breathe through a hidden rubber hose and hoping that the pressure from being underwater won’t give them another ear infection or nose bleed. As they fight against the spring’s current, which can push against them at surprisingly strong speeds of up to five miles an hour, they must smile through it all as if they’re the world’s happiest, most relaxed, care-free, fictional creature.
Weeki Wachee, located about an hour north of Tampa, is one of the oldest and most revered tourist attractions in Florida. It’s been around since 1947. Although its golden age came during the 60s—when it wasn’t uncommon for celebrity guests such as Elvis Presley to stop by and flirt with the mermaids—it still attracts steady crowds, with an annual attendance of around 175,000 visitors. It’s a far cry from nearby Disney World (DIS), which attracts 16 million-plus people every year. But Weeki Wachee, unlike Disney, hasn’t changed in any significant way in 65 years. The park was putting on mermaid shows back when your grandfather was vacationing in Florida, and it’s putting on more or less the same classic mermaid shows today.
The auditions to be a Weeki Wachee mermaid, McConnell says, can be brutal, especially for the young men and women (yes, there are male mermaids) who think the job just requires posing for pictures with tourists. “Before we even talk to you,” she says, “we make you get in the water. We watch from the theater to see what faces you make.” Some people, she says, may be amazing swimmers, but their expressions underwater are far from elegant. Do their cheeks pop out like a mermaid Dizzy Gillespie, or do their complexions turn blue and their eyes bulge in unattractive ways? The last thing an audience at Weeki Wachee wants to see is a mermaid who looks as if he or she might be drowning.
The auditions to be a Weeki Wachee mermaid, McConnell says, can be brutal, especially for the young men and women (yes, there are male mermaids) who think the job just requires posing for pictures with tourists. “Before we even talk to you,” she says, “we make you get in the water. We watch from the theater to see what faces you make.” Some people, she says, may be amazing swimmers, but their expressions underwater are far from elegant. Do their cheeks pop out like a mermaid Dizzy Gillespie, or do their complexions turn blue and their eyes bulge in unattractive ways? The last thing an audience at Weeki Wachee wants to see is a mermaid who looks as if he or she might be drowning.
McConnell has been with Weeki Wachee for 12 years, making her the park’s current senior mermaid. (Most girls, she says, last only a year or two.) Being a mermaid may not be the highest-paying profession—she’s also a bartender at a nearby Applebee’s (DIN) to supplement her income—and health benefits for mermaids are only optional. (“We pay in sea shells,” she jokes. “In the underwater world, it’s legal tender.”) But McConnell says she has no intention of retiring any time soon. It may have something to do with the lack of career options, acting or otherwise, that require the same skill set involved in pretending to be a mythological half-human, half-fish hybrid.
Asked what she might want to do once she hangs up her fins, McConnell says: “I guess I could do any show where you have to hold your breath for any length of time.”
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