Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

What I love about Merle Liivand’s mermaid swim is that it is unique, it is replicable, and she trained not only to set the record, but also to achieve greater goals than a mere swim.  Marathon swimming and channel swimming have been around for a long time.  We know about beautiful mermaids who enchanted sailors in previous centuries and contemporary children through storytelling animation.  Merle is the embodiment of those idealized mermaids – and combines that ideal with athleticism and the determination of marathon swimming with the desire to make a difference as a marine environmentalist