Meet the real-life Ariel who spends her days swimming alongside sharks, rays and giant sea turtles - but says being a mermaid is 'hard, hard work' as she has to hold her breath for up to four minutes. Flame-haired Naomi Trott travels the length and breadth of Britain to take part in aquarium displays as a performance mermaid.
The 34-year-old undergoes five hours of intense training in and out of the pool each week to ensure she's in tip-top shape to zip around aquariums, wave and blow bubble kisses to delighted visitors. Naomi describes children's reactions to her as 'magical' and said she was moved to tears when a thrilled youngster told her mum 'Mummy look there's a ginger mermaid like me'.
The archaeologist and senior cultural heritage consultant, who's married to 37-year-old musician Benjamin Trott, works four days a week so she can dedicate one weekday along with her weekends to the hobby. Naomi, from Bristol, said: "It's incredible seeing children's faces light up when they see a real-life mermaid, it's magical.
"It's tough being a mermaid, it's hard, hard work. "When you're there in the tank you can be cold, it's physically tiring, but when you go down there and you see a little kid in front of you just absolutely losing it and they're waving it's wonderful.
"We've got constant radio contact with the staff members at the window on the other side. "One of them said 'when you went down there, there was a little girl and she said 'Mummy look there's a ginger mermaid just like me'.
I cried, it was just so wonderful. "I'm really lucky that my day job is flexible to allow me to do this part-time.
"Her love for being in water started when Naomi was a youngster, describing herself as a real 'water baby'. This progressed to wild swimming and a mermaiding session where she tried on a monofin, a type of swimfin typically used in underwater sports, and tail for the first time.
Noami said: "I was lucky enough that my parents gave me swimming lessons when I was a kid. "I loved being in the water, I was a real water baby.
"I got into wild swimming a few years ago and through that I saw lots of taster days [advertised] for being a mermaid.
"There was one of these in Bristol that I went to and I met a few like-minded people there. Swimming with a monofin and tail on for the first time was very exciting. It was the high point of the experience to transform into something else - a bit of escapism in one way, it was really great.
"I realised that holding my breath was important if I wanted to take the mermaiding further. I wanted to spend more time under the water in that magical underwater world so then I realised that I would have to train in free diving.
"Wanting to realise those dreams, Naomi went along to training sessions and got her first AIDA (Association Internationale pour le Développement de l'Apnée) qualification in 2019 - and gained her AIDA three-star freediving qualification in October with Bristol Freedivers. Naomi said: "I started training with that and got my first qualification which enabled me to start doing some mermaid shows.
"In order to maintain that level of breathhold to be able to do the performances you need to train regularly. "Lots of training goes into it and you have to keep it up in order to be ready to do shows.
"You can't just have a month off so I train three times a week in the pool and I also do cardio and strength workouts just to maintain that level of background fitness to be able to do that. My personal best holding my breath underwater is four minutes and seven seconds.
"The first time I had a tail on was a very strange feeling at first but moving my legs in that way wasn't that unfamiliar to me. Because I've been swimming since I was a child [doing] the butterfly stroke you use a dolphin kick anyway so I was fairly familiar with that.
"Naomi took her first dive into a tank as a mermaid with Performance Mermaids at Manchester Sealife in December 2019 and said she hasn't looked back since. Naomi said: "It was thrilling and exciting entering my first tank as a mermaid, but I was quite nervous too.
"We usually have a 20-min shift with two mermaids. One will go down [into the tank] and then come up to breathe for air, then the other will go down.
"Sometimes it involves going down to the window, waving, blowing bubble kisses or ones with a tunnel we swim along the top of a tunnel but it's very much tailored to the environment. We usually try to keep the performance to one area of the tank so the animals have a safe space they can go to if they don't want to be around mermaids.
"I wear a monofin made of rubber, a swimsuit material tail and a moulded silicone top that looks like actual scales. I also wear a weight belt, which has got diving weights on it, just like a normal freediver would have but cover those weights with silicone shells and starfish so it looks a bit more mermaidy.
"My first mermaiding experience was Christmas 2019 and I haven't looked back since, it's been wonderful." Although Naomi is keen to ensure people get the full magical mermaid experience, she and other mermaids take their responsibility to the animals very seriously.
Naomi said: "There are rays, sharks and turtles in the tanks. The first time we go into a tank we are given a briefing by the aquariast telling us about what animals are in there and potential risks.
"Usually the animals give us a wide berth but some are very curious. "We have to be careful with what we wear - that there's no glitter or beads or things that could fall off that could harm the creatures in the aquarium.
"I don't wear make-up because it's just easier. We have to be careful about what we wear - we are guests in the animals' home so they take priority over what we want to wear."
