We love this beautiful photo-collage that was made by the POPSY charity in South Wales after Mermaid Ondine's recent appearance at their mermaid swim event! POPSY is a great charity which supports families whose youngsters are blind, have special needs or life limiting conditions. Mermaid Ondine had a wonderful time meeting and swimming with the POPSY families before joining them for a great party on dry land, featuring some truly amazing mermaid cupcakes! We're hoping to see more of the POPSY family soon.
Mermaid Melusine reports:
We love this beautiful photo-collage that was made by the POPSY charity in South Wales after Mermaid Ondine's recent appearance at their mermaid swim event! POPSY is a great charity which supports families whose youngsters are blind, have special needs or life limiting conditions. Mermaid Ondine had a wonderful time meeting and swimming with the POPSY families before joining them for a great party on dry land, featuring some truly amazing mermaid cupcakes! We're hoping to see more of the POPSY family soon.
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Mermaid Ondine reports: Have you ever wanted to see behind the scenes at an underwater photoshoot? Well, now you can! We've put together a few clips showing our mermaids in action at a recent underwater shoot - and you can see even more over at the Merlesque Mermaids Youtube Channel. Our mermaids are experienced underwater models with great breath holds, buoyancy control, and a lot of experience modelling both in mermaid and human form! Our next photoshoot on the 17th May is already fully booked with photographers, but if you'd be interested in coming along next time to get the chance to take beautiful underwater pictures without needing specialist equipment (or to get your feet wet!), please contact us and we'll keep you informed about our upcoming shoots.
It's also been a big year for underwater photography, and the Merlesque mermaids have taken part in several underwater photoshoots - they've even occasionally used a little mermaid magic to take on human form when modelling underwater. You can see a video of one of our photoshoots by clicking here.
![]() Our mermaids have also been enchanting young and old at aquariums across the country. Merlesque Mermaid Lily La Mer swam at the Blue Planet Aquarium in Cheshire during the summer, and mermaids Melusine and Ondine were the stars of the Magical Mermaids Weekend at Deep Sea World Aquarium in Edinburgh, where they were kept busy swimming alongside seven sand tiger sharks and meeting lots of very excited little humans. The water in Deep Sea World's shark tank is icy cold - check out Mermaid Melusine warming up in a sink, opposite! Plus you can see a video of our mermaids in action by clicking here. There have also been plenty of magical children's parties to keep our real mermaids occupied, plus a whole range of exciting events too numerous to mention; some of our personal highlights have been the Folkestone Mermaid Festival and the Summer House Weekend. Plus our mermaids have been featured regularly in the press, including Mermaid Lily La Mer who appeared in the Daily Mail, and Mermaid Ondine who made the front page of the Cambridge News.
Merry Christmas from the Merlesque Mermaids! Check out this beautiful (if, admittedly, not particularly seasonal) picture by talented photographer Duncan Grisby. For Christmas, Merlesque are hoping to get 1,000 followers on our Facebook page - follow us now for more gorgeous underwater photography and videos!
Mermaid Ondine reports: You might remember that waaay back at the start of October, mermaid Melusine and myself swam all the way across the UK and up to Edinburgh to perform at Deep Sea World aquarium, where we appeared swimming alongside their seven huge sand tiger sharks! We've put together a video showing our real life mermaids swimming with sharks, which you can see below - or visit our YouTube channel where you can see even more amazing underwater footage of real mermaids. We were at the aquarium for three days during the Magical Mermaids weekend in October, and our mermaids appeared in the tropical rock pools so that children and adults alike could come to have their photo taken with a real life mermaid. Plus there was the opportunity to watch from the aquarium's observation tunnel as the Merlesque mermaids swam alongside the UK's largest collection of sharks, and an amazing selection of fish and other sea creatures - including Stella the stingray, who's definitely the friendliest stingray we've ever met. The staff at Deep Sea World were so lovely and incredibly helpful with carrying us around everywhere and keeping us supplied with hot drinks and big buckets of hot water - we're tropical mermaids, so the icy water in the shark tank (which is piped in straight from the Forth!) felt extremely chilly to us. We came up with a whole variety of ways to warm up after our swims, including warm showers, borrowing the staff hairdryers, and even just sitting in a sink of hot water - check out Mermaid Melusine demonstrating this particular technique below!
The whole weekend was made even more special by the fact that the aquarium had created a lovely storybook complete with pictures of us and a story explaining to the children how we came to be mermaids. Mermaid Melusine and I both got copies of the storybook to take home! Hopefully we'll be back at Deep Sea World sometime in the new year, so if you love mermaids and you're based in the Edinburgh area, watch this space.
Best fishes, Mermaid Ondine x ![]() Mermaid Ondine reports: It's Magical Mermaids weekend at the Deep Sea World aquarium in Scotland - and no mermaid weekend would be complete without a visit from the Merlesque real mermaids! Myself and Mermaid Melusine will be up bright and extremely early tomorrow morning, to swim all the way up the coast from Cambridge, under the Forth Bridge, and into Deep Sea World's amazing Underwater Safari exhibit, where we'll be appearing alongside one of the largest collections of sharks in Europe - including three-metre-long sand tiger sharks! We'll be swimming around the aquarium's underwater viewing tunnel throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday (you can see a full list of our dive times here), and we'll also be available for photos and a chat in the tropical rockpool exhibit - so you can prove to your friends that you've met a real life mermaid. We'll also be making a special appearance tomorrow night at the aquarium, and Groupon tickets are still available for the event, which includes mermaid dives taking place throughout the evening, plus an optional disco and face-painting - it's a perfect night out for the whole family. We'd love to see you there - so if you're based in Scotland and you love mermaids, why not come along and help us make a splash?
Mermaid Ondine reports: We've put together a video from a few short clips taken backstage at our recent photoshoot at the Peterborough Aquatheatre! You can see our real mermaids in action, modelling underwater in both mermaid and human form. If you're a photographer and you'd be interested in taking part in one of our future underwater shoots, you can contact us and request to be added to our photography mailing list, to be kept up to date with future opportunities to shoot real UK mermaids in their natural element! ![]() Mermaid Ondine reports: The Merlesque mermaids are incredibly excited to announce a unique opportunity for 15 lucky photographers on the 23rd August: the chance to photograph real mermaids and underwater models - without getting your feet wet! Ever wanted to try underwater photography but been put off by the expensive equipment and complex set-up? This is the perfect opportunity to dip a toe into the magical world of underwater photography, without the worry and expense. You will be able to photograph mermaids and dancers through the sides of a photographic-quality acrylic tank, meaning that you can use your own favourite camera to capture beautiful underwater images. The tank at the Peterborough Aquatheatre is make of high grade acrylic which is perfect for distortion-free photography, as it has a refraction rate much closer to that of water than a glass tank would have. Lighting will be set up and tested before you arrive, and shoots will take place in small groups of no more than five photographers at a time. You will be able to shoot both a mermaid in full costume, and a model in human form; all our models are experienced professional underwater models with the ability to control their buoyancy, hold their breath and open their eyes underwater - all while posing and looking beautiful. We will supply props and costumes, but we're also very much open to your suggestions, so if there are any particular ideas you have for what you'd like to shoot, just let us know! This is the first time we have ever run this event, and consequently the amazing price of £60 (or £55 if you like our Facebook page) covers tank hire alone. We will never be able to run this event so cheaply again, so please do come and join us. You can find out more details (including timings etc.) here, or please do contact us if you have further questions or would like to book your space. We're delighted to announce that Merlesque mermaid Lily La Mer will be appearing at the Blue Planet Aquarium in Cheshire, UK on Sunday the 20th July! It's your chance to see a magical real life mermaid swimming before your very eyes, amongst a host of spectacular sea creatures including sand tiger sharks. Our mermaid will be appearing for three swimming sessions throughout the day in the aquarium's shark tunnel, after which she will be available at the side of the tank for a chat and photographs - so you can meet a mermaid in the flesh, and find out a little more about her life under the sea.
You can even save £3 off all tickets to the Blue Planet Aquarium on the 20th by using this voucher available from Wrexham Savers. The aquarium is open 10am to 6pm, which means that in addition to seeing a beautiful real life mermaid swimming amongst exotic sharks and fish, you can take the whole day to explore the underwater world that mermaids inhabit. So why not join us for a magical Mermaid Sunday on the 20th July - it's sure to be unforgettable! ![]() Mermaid Ondine reports: Last Saturday myself and Mermaid Melusine swam away to sunny Peterborough, for an underwater photo shoot at the Aquatheatre. We had a few adventures along the way, not least with a taxi driver who took us several miles out of our way to the village of Barnack - no doubt a delightful place... but not quite where we were intending to go! Anyway, we made it to the shoot, and fortunately we still had plenty of time to spare, which enabled us to watch some of the human models doing their thing as well. We were enthralled by how magical some of the floatiest dresses and fabric looked underwater. In fact, we might have been a little jealous if the photographer hadn't suggested we should use some mermaid magic to take on human form ourselves, and got some shots of us underwater in beautiful chiffon dresses. The Aquatheatre itself was great fun to shoot in - it's a water-filled tank with clear sides, meaning photographers don't need to be scuba divers or really good at holding their breath in order to get beautiful underwater images. And fortunately the tank is even big enough for a mermaid to flex her fins and have a proper swim in!
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The Sirens!
Like all true mermaids, the Sirens at Merlesque like to let their hair down once in a while... Never miss us!Sign up for our mermaid RSS feed to get mermaid updates in your inbox!
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