Never alone: the first rule of mermaiding

Never swim in a tail alone, and never hold your breath underwater without someone watching you. Every other safety rule in these guides comes after this one.

It sounds obvious. Yet most of the accidents described below happened to good swimmers, in pools, with other people around. This guide explains why "not alone" has to mean something more specific than "other people are here".

Why a tail changes things

A tail joins your legs together inside a single fin. That is what makes mermaid swimming beautiful, and it is also what takes away your usual ways out of trouble.

• You cannot tread water normally, or kick your legs apart to stay upright.
• You cannot stand up quickly until your feet are out of the fin.
• Tiredness arrives sooner. The dolphin kick uses your core, back and hips, muscles most people rarely work this hard.
• A cramp, a mouthful of water or a moment of panic is harder to recover from when your legs are bound.

This is why Royal Life Saving Society Australia recommends tails only for competent swimmers, in a controlled setting such as a pool, under supervision. It also advises that a swimmer should be able to free their own feet from the fin and get to the edge, a ladder or shallow water unaided. Our guide to tails and monofins covers the gear itself.

Why trouble underwater is quiet

People expect drowning to look like a film: shouting, waving, splashing. Usually it does not. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that drowning can take only seconds and rarely makes a sound.

Breath-holding makes this worse. If you black out from low oxygen, you simply stop moving. There is no struggle and no cry for help. A Singapore General Hospital emergency doctor, writing for ActiveSG, notes that this can look exactly like someone holding their breath on purpose, so help may come late. Our guide to shallow-water blackout explains how that happens.

The Royal Life Saving Society UK makes a related point about swimmers who are in trouble but still conscious. Someone who is panicking may be upright in the water, pushing down with their arms to lift their head. Because breathing takes priority, they often cannot call for help at all.

So a watcher cannot rely on noise. They have to be looking.

Near people is not the same as watched

In 2015 the CDC's journal MMWR published a study by New York City's health department. It looked at 16 people in New York State, between 1988 and 2011, who drowned or nearly drowned after dangerous breath-holding in the water. Four of them died.

• Fifteen of the sixteen drownings happened at regulated pools.
• Nearly all of those had a lifeguard on duty.
• More than half happened with other swimmers present.

A lifeguard is scanning a whole pool, often a busy one. They cannot follow every breath-hold of every swimmer. Divers Alert Network (DAN) states plainly that the presence of a lifeguard is not enough for breath-hold swimmers, even in a pool. What is needed is one-to-one supervision.

What "not alone" means

One person whose only job is watching you

Not a friend who is also swimming, filming or chatting. Not a parent on a phone. One person who is looking at you, and only you, for as long as you are in the water. The CDC's advice for anyone supervising children is the same: close, constant attention, with no reading, phones or alcohol.

Close enough to reach you

A watcher on the far side of a pool cannot help in time. They should be able to see you clearly through the water and reach you within seconds.

Watching every breath-hold from start to finish

Including the way back up. Blackouts are most likely near the end of a breath-hold: in the last part of the rise to the surface, and in the moments after you come up.

Still watching after you surface

DAN advises keeping close watch on a breath-hold swimmer for at least 30 seconds after they surface. Oxygen takes a little time to reach the brain again after that first breath. A swimmer can look fine as they break the surface and still lose consciousness a few seconds later.

One up, one down

When two trained buddies practise breath-holds together, only one goes under at a time. The other stays at the surface and watches, then they swap. DAN notes that this system offers some protection for simple, shallow activity in good conditions, with a diligent buddy. It becomes less reliable as the activity gets more complicated. A photoshoot, a routine or a group session needs more care, not less. See underwater photoshoot safety.

What a good watcher looks for

DAN lists early signs that a breath-holder is running low on oxygen. They are often subtle, which is why the watcher needs to know what "normal" looks like for that swimmer.

Any of these means the breath-hold is over. Get them to the surface.

If something goes wrong

This is general knowledge, not rescue training. Rescue is a skill to learn properly, with practice.

1. Act at once. Do not wait to see whether they are joking.
2. Get their face out of the water and keep their airway clear. DAN stresses that water in the airway makes revival harder.
3. Shout for help, and get a lifeguard or anyone nearby to call an ambulance. In Singapore, that is 995.
4. Get them out of the water. Start CPR if they are not breathing normally. If you are trained, begin with two rescue breaths. If not, the 995 call taker will talk you through it, and chest compressions alone are far better than nothing.
5. Get medical help even if they recover quickly. StatPearls, a medical reference, advises that anyone who loses consciousness in the water should be assessed in hospital.

After a blackout or a loss of control, a DAN article by Capps advises staying out of the water for at least 24 hours. DAN describes how one diver's earlier blackout put him at greater risk of another.

If you plan to watch others regularly, take a lifesaving course and learn CPR. The CDC notes that CPR can keep someone alive until paramedics arrive.

Common mistakes

• "The lifeguard is watching." They are watching everyone. You need someone watching you.
• "I'll only be a minute." A blackout needs only one breath-hold, and drowning can take only seconds.
• Watching the dive but not the surfacing. The 30 seconds after you come up count too.
• A watcher who is also busy: filming, coaching another swimmer, or swimming themselves.
• "I'm a strong swimmer." In the New York study, all four people who died were advanced or expert swimmers.

Habits that keep a tail safe

• Practise taking the tail off yourself, quickly, in shallow water, before you swim in it.
• Stay in a pool. Open water adds currents, swell, poor visibility and boats. See pool or open water?
• No long-distance swims or races in a tail. Royal Life Saving Society Australia advises against both.
• No somersaults or other disorienting moves outside a lesson. Royal Life Saving Society Australia advises against them for recreational tail use.
• Agree simple signals with your watcher before you start: OK, not OK, and coming up.
• Get out when you are tired or cold. Tiredness makes every other risk bigger.

For children, the same rules apply, with an adult always within reach. Our guide for parents covers the details.

In our lessons

Lessons at The Dancing Mermaid are mostly one-to-one and never more than four, and every breath-hold is watched, one student at a time, in the shallow end. In lessons, a separate photographer takes the photos, so her eyes stay on the water, not on a camera.

Aliyah keeps mermaid work within a safe depth for the pool being used, and no one is ever in the water alone. At Advanced (M1) and Master (M2) level, MFI tests rescue skills, including a rescue tow, alongside a written exam passed at 75% or above, so as you progress you learn to watch over others as well as be watched.

Outside lessons, please bring this rule home with you. If there is no one to watch you, leave the tail in its bag and save the breath-holds for another day.