First ‘mermaid sightings’ recorded by legendary explorers

Early European explorers documented “mermaid sightings” when they were out sailing about, beginning in the 15th century. 

In 1493, the intrepid Italian explorer Christopher Columbus reported seeing three mermaids near the coast of Hispaniola. He described them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.” 

Historians assume that Columbus saw manatees, not mermaids, wrote Richard Daybell, creator of “Wretched Richard’s Almanac.” 

“Manatees are slow-moving aquatic beasts, weighing a good thousand pounds with bulbous faces but Bette Davis eyes,” Daybell said. “Most observers would not mistake them for Daryl Hannah.” 

(Hannah was the movie star actress who appeared as a mermaid in Ron Howard’s film “Splash,” a fantasy-romantic comedy released in 1984.)

 In 1608, English explorer Henry Hudson reported seeing a mermaid off the coast of Norway. She had an upper body of a woman with pale skin and long black hair. Her lower body was speckled like a mackerel, and she had a tail like a porpoise. 

Capt. John Smith was another English adventurer who recorded seeing in 1614 an “attractive woman with long green hair swimming with all possible grace.” 

Today, mermaid enthusiasts can find an entire “city of living mermaids” at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, located in Florida’s Hernando County and near the Gulf of Mexico. 

Weeki Wachee Springs is where the mermaids have congregated since 1947. Local swimming celebrity Newton Perry reckoned that if he built an underwater theater and recruited a “splash of mermaids” to perform synchronized underwater routines, people would come and pay just to see them. He was right. 

One of the newest members of the Weeki Wachee mermaid squad is North Carolinian Lydia Byrd of Burnsville in Yancey County. She joined the cast in 2018. More than 60 applicants qualified for auditions, which tested their strength and abilities in the water as well as their people skills.

Lydia Byrd

 Lydia and six other swimmers were accepted into the program. This was her first fulltime job after graduating as an art major from East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. 

The Weeki Wachee mermaids enjoy corresponding with their fans via “tail mail.” It’s an effort to pair young students with cast members. Children’s handwritten letters to their favorite mermaids are meant to “encourage literacy, penmanship and artistic talent.” The mermaids’ responses are videoed and posted on social media. 

This is an important aspect of the mermaid program to Lydia, because she said she enjoys encouraging young girls to follow their dreams.   

Weeki Wachee mermaids form strong bonds, uniting under the credo: “Once a mermaid, always a mermaid.” 

Every now and then, an “aggregation” of portly manatees will enter the spring to swim with a “splash” of Weeki Wachee mermaids. An incredible video clip by Liquid Productions is available on YouTube. 

“Manatees are calm and peaceful marine mammals that pose no danger to swimmers. In fact, they are curious animals that enjoy human interaction and are quite happy to relate with and be around humans,” noted Justin Strickland of Captain Mike’s, an ecotourism business. 

Manatees are herbivores and eat more than 60 different freshwater and saltwater plants. Manatees inhabit the shallow rivers of Florida and use their flippers to “walk” along the bottom, digging for plants and roots in the substrate. They use their flippers to scoop the vegetation toward their lips. 

Mermaiding may not be for everyone, but there are instructional weekend camps at Weeki Wachee for kids, teens, moms and grannies.