Becoming a certified mermaid in Bora Bora isn’t as easy as it looks | Canada Voices

“You swim with your legs together, like a mermaid,” my friend pointed out.

She had a point, though I didn’t think much of her comment at the time. We were on a boat heading back to our resort in Fiji after a day of advanced Professional Association of Diving Instructors training.

I took the PADI dive lessons seriously. But I did like to relieve some of the tension by being silly underwater, floating, spinning and defying gravity in the buoyancy of the Pacific Ocean.

So a few weeks later, when asked if I was interested in learning about PADI mermaid certification – at the Four Seasons Bora Bora, no less – I felt like I could be a natural.

The PADI Mermaid Diving Education Program was introduced in December, 2020, and quickly piqued the interest of divers and non-divers globally.

A few months later, a seaside resort in China set the Guinness World Record for the largest underwater mermaid show, featuring more than 100 trained mermaids. (The record still stands.) This once-niche program is going mainstream – from 2023 to 2025, PADI reports a 400-per-cent increase in mermaid certifications.

A diving trip to the Cayman Islands became a ‘side quest’ to keep life interesting

Get a scuba diving fix at this little-known Caribbean isle resort

You don’t need to be Ariel-obsessed to want to swim like her. You don’t even have to be a licensed diver – participants just need to be over the age of six and bring a snorkel and monofin. For me, it was simply about wanting to try something different, and this offered a quirky new way of seeing the ocean.

It turns out that getting certified in mermaiding went deeper than the opportunity to take dreamy photos for social media. Putting on a tail became a mindset. Whether it’s for wellness, fitness, performance art or making a childhood dream a reality, mermaiding has a community of enthusiasts. Many find the classes give them confidence in the water that they might not have on land.

I arrived in French Polynesia in May, 2023, with three aspiring merfolk, fellow writers who would become my new pod. I learned that PADI considers mermaid to be a gender-neutral term, though I personally like the sound of merman.

The resort put me up in an overwater bungalow, and when I arrived, I immediately unpacked my new tail.

I found my tail online. It’s made from one-millimetre-thick, four-way-stretch scuba fabric, decorated with a fish-scale pattern in shades of green. It has an elastic waistband and a hidden side zipper. It pairs with a rubbery monofin.

I noticed that the bathtub in my suite overlooked the ocean, and my first thought was that I’d definitely be taking photos in that tub, wearing this tail, as soon as I was certified.

The resort’s lagoon is about 3.6 metres deep with a floating dock. This pool became our classroom. Our instructor, Brandee Anthony, is a certified mermaid and social-media star, who co-founded Mermaid Freedive with her fiancé Zeke Motta. Motta would teach us how to breathe underwater.

In the lagoon, our first lesson was about getting our tail on and off while treading water. I bunched up the tail fabric to first get my feet secured in the monofin. Then, I pulled the tail up from my ankles to my waist, completely covering my legs. It must have looked like I was drowning as I got used to treading water without kicking my legs. It’s harder than it looks!

Once the tail was on, I felt a light dose of panic, because my legs were now bound together and I couldn’t touch the ground. Transforming my swimming style from legs to tail was an adjustment mentally and physically. But the longer I was in the lagoon, the more that sense of panic faded. I started having fun.

First, we learned how to duck dive. You take a breath, then bend at the hips and plunge headfirst into the water, lifting your feet straight up on the way down – just like a duck.

I tried and tried, but had trouble nailing this necessary formation. I wasn’t used to swimming with my hips instead of my knees, and that’s key for mermaiding. On Day 2 of our training, something clicked in my brain, and I nailed the technique.

One of the harder certification requirements is swimming 50 metres underwater without a mask in the ocean, on one breath.

To prepare, I worked with freediver Motta to learn how to hold my breath for more than two minutes. Eventually, I could freedive more than 15 feet below the surface.

Each member of my mermaiding pod had different-coloured tails, and we joked that we were the underwater version of the Power Rangers, assembling and activating our powers. In a way, that’s exactly what happened. Swimming in my tail gave me a newfound sense of confidence, and I impressed myself by learning a new skill set that I didn’t know I was capable of.

On our last night at the resort, Anthony presented us with our certificates during dinner. I clapped and cheered for everyone. Spending hours in the ocean learning how to mermaid bonds you in the best way.

As a fully certified mermaid, I can be hired to perform. That hasn’t happened yet, but I do like to slip on my tail for fitness and lean into the whimsy of the mermaid community. I bring my tail when I travel now and have gone mermaiding in the Galapagos Islands, the Bahamas, Mexico and Greece. On one of my trips coming up, I’ll be working toward my instructor credentials.

If you go

Mermaid classes are not exclusive to Bora Bora – you can get certification through any PADI Dive Center that offers the course, including those in Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto. padi.com

The Basic Mermaiding course is $350, while the advanced lessons run $470 since that also includes a Basic Freediving Certification. Participants need to bring a mask and monofin. A mermaid tail is optional (but a lot more fun).

FinFolk Productions is a small U.S. business that specializes in making mermaid tails. Tails should feel like wearing a wetsuit and while there’s ample information on the website about sizing, I submitted a list of measurements to make sure it fit. Prices start at US$295 and run to US$10,000 for a custom silicone model. finfolk.com

This writer was a guest of PADI and Tahiti Tourisme. Neither reviewed or approved this article. Stories are based on merit; The Globe and Mail does not guarantee coverage.