Hey guys I just wanted to do a quick entry about my whirlwind trip to China, like wow what an opportunity, that was so amazing. Thank you very much to Atlantis Sanya City and the Chinese sport Commission and PADI for supporting us and sending us giving us some T shirts and so much support.

I am so grateful for the opportunity and the experience, so I wanted to say thank you for all that.

My mind is blown, Atlantis in Sanya is an entire hotel dedicated to Mermaids, every little detail was ocean and mermaid related, it was so beautiful. And the Aquarium! From the outside the tank is amazing but inside oh wow! I don’t know the exact dimensions of the entire space but I’m going to say at least 2 Olympic pools piled on top of each other and we needed to utilise the whole space.

I felt a little lost in the huge open space underwater. The first time we got in for our practice was overwhelming, it took my breath away, it was cold, I didn’t have any weight on and the pressure on me was immense. To be completely honest, I lost the plot, I wanted to quit halfway through the practice performance, I had an asthma/panic attack and I was fighting tears and panic and the urge to give up. But I kept going. As soon as I got out, I lost the plot.

Tears, asthma, embarrassment, shame, it all came flooding over me. That night was very long and hard and I felt very alone and lost and confused, sad and angry. Knowing I can dive, I was so confused as to what just happened to me. After sometime processing my emotions, I swallowed my pride, I reached out to my friends for support, told them what happened and how I felt.

I have full respect for all the all the Chinese and international mermaid performers that have been performing in this tank for awhile now, it is overwhelming, and to be honest I was just was so honoured to be able to have a go in there and dive with the amazing fish and alongside of all the performers which I have so most respect for. No one said it would be easy, but I didn’t expect it to be that hard either, but it was a world competition, so the stakes should be high! We had 3 pages of criteria to cover and we needed to dive 8 times to around 8 meters in 8 minutes to make the performance valid.

The other performers made it look easy and I tell you what, it’s not! I’ve dived to 41 metres in the ocean and that was easier than performing in that aquarium, so I have full respect for everybody who does that, they make it look easy.

I am fully honoured and fully grateful to be alongside such amazing Mermaids. It might have been a little bit stressful in the tank during the performances, but we all felt the pressure on different days at different times. What I loved is everybody supported everybody else, the love and support from all the mermaids within our international group and outside of that group was just phenomenal, so much love and gratitude for all of that love and support that was available all around. My mind is truly blown.

I learnt so many things whilst I was there which I’m going to implement into my own courses here in Australia, so if you’re interested in coming for a PADI Mermaid course, having a chat or or just doing some training, reach out. I’d love to talk to you, I’d love to talk to as many mermaids as possible, I just really want to build this community and I really want to have my own tribe of mermaids spread joy and happiness into our community.

Let’s build a community, let’s support each other and uplift each other and help each other out, I think that’s what life’s all about. Love! If you’re on the sunshine coast or Brisbane or the Gold Coast and you want to train or hang out let’s organise stuff let’s just hang out!