It is my cake day so I'm sharing my passion of being a pro-mermaid with you!

So hey happy birthday to me. Let me share with you something I'm. Very passionate about. I'm professional mermaid. Yes it's a job. Im not a freak. I'm a performer, artist, freediver and educator. I've been doing it for 5 years and got into it after art school and becoming an underwater photographer. This is me in my dragonskin silicone tail by Finfolk Productions. We used to make our own but they would wear so quickly we had to remake them constantly. These have lasted two years. And are super functional and realistic. And also 15kg!

This is my duo performing partner and best friend mermaid Amelia. We perform, photograph, educate about the ocean and are generally creative. We work at aquariums and all sorts of public and private events hoping to inspire love and respect for the ocean through first capturing people with joy and imagination. Then we can teach them about the amazing things that first connected us with ocean and why we need to protect it.

We are both photographers so sometimes we go for a swim purely to make inspiring images.

This is this largest shark we swim with. She is a Grey nurse shark (that is what we call them here in Aus) they were hunted almost to extinction because people thought they were man eaters but they actually can't eat anything bigger than a banana and are so docile! She is 3.4m long. A good metre bigger than me even with the extra length of my tail. I love her to death. She is so majestic and calm.

I love working at my local aquarium. I perform routines of sometimes simple leisurely swim in the largest exhibit which has many sharks, stingrays and two huge turtles. We are very respectful of the animals but the turtles are very interested in us and love back to tickles.

We are trained freedivers but often we go "train" and just have fun taking photos and practising tricks.

We do a lot of underwater work. We can hold our breath up to 4 mins static and one to two minutes while moving and using energy. Never try doing this without proper training though. Especially in water!
I love interacting through the glass. But we work face to face with children more often than not!

This is a different aquarium we work at with lots of natural light that shines down. We can see really clearly and swim with lots of coral and tropical fish. Even with a leopard and hammerhead shark!

This is me swimming on the Great Barrier Reef. Unfortunately swimming upwards so you can't see any coral but I love how it looks like a starry sky. The reef is truly stunning. Full of life and colour. I cried when I first saw it this day because I was so overwhelmed by it's beauty.

Underwater work is actually really not glamorous and very challenging. You get sick a lot. Fish guts in your hair. Sore eyes, sinuses and ears. We also get lots of foot injuries (ironically sacrificing our feet for fins) and back issues from the weight of our tails (15kg with lots of water resistance while twisting).

Bubble rings are such a fun mermaid trick. So are bubble hearts!

Another majestic little image Amelia took of me. We love working with reflections!

Swimming 8m down at a local landmark around the Seagrass. So stunning and calm there.

Turtle seal cuddle tax

Shameless self promotion.
Find me on Facebook.com/mermaidjessicapearl and instagram @mermaidjessicapearl to follow my adventures. I have a lot of them. I love to share them with fellow ocean lovers.