In-depth Magazine published a series of articles about Mermaids; yes, mermaids. There is a new tendency for people to create a subculture around this activity.
Apparently, this go deep into history; it’s no new, goes way back into the 60’s. This group of people differentiates itself from the free diver as they dress like a mermaid. They develop their own norms and values regarding their training and performances.
A mermaid is a fabled marine creature with the head and upper body of a woman and the tail of a fish. In European folklore, mermaids were natural beings who, like fairies, had magical and prophetic powers. Sometimes they used their power for good and other times for evil.
Ancient sailors claimed to witness in deep oceans creatures’ part-human and part-animal. Maps are strewn with strange creatures likes mermaids and mermen.
An Asian literary piece entitled “Arabian Nights” describe mermaids, Greeks had the sea-God Triton, and so on… The concept is so root into our mind that we had classified an order living creature as Sirenia (Sirenia=Mermaid), which also includes three species of manatees. These beautiful mammals thought to have inspired the folklore because of their almost human-like size and grace.
Diveimmersion.org 