On their return to shore, a stranger approaches them and asks seriously: “Are you all mermaids?”

“Yes, we are!” they respond.

“I thought so,” he says, and goes his way.

The three women (who refer to themselves as ‘Delicious, Delightful, Dedicated Dell’, ‘Gorgeous, Giggly, God-fearing Gilda’ and ‘Ecstatic, Extraordinary, Ever-expanding-good Erin’) swim together at Milford Bay (and sometimes Store Bay) every weekday starting at 6:00 a.m.

Others who have seen them in the water have also referred to them as mermaids—those mythical aquatic creatures with the head and upper body of a human female and the tail of a fish.

Why would random strangers refer to them as such?

“It’s because of our passion and love for swimming and how far out we go, while they stay in the shallows,” Erin explains. “Our presence has called people out past their boundaries. Something about us being out there has opened up new possibilities for people.”

Being called out beyond the boundaries of doubt and fear is something that two of the mermaids understand well. Unlike Erin, a long-time accomplished swimmer, Gilda and Dell only ‘found their fins’, so to speak, in mid 2016.

While living in Trinidad, Gilda never went to the beach. However, when life challenges prompted her to move to Tobago to heal, the always-visible ocean called to her soul.

On visits to the beach with ‘Uncle Peter’, Gilda began her relationship with the ocean. From the safety of the sand or shallow waters (using a float belt belonging to Uncle Peter’s brother), she would gaze at Erin swimming in deeper waters, and dream of one day doing the same.

Similarly, Dell had little connection to the ocean until, in the 1990’s, she met Erin who told her: “I believe you can swim!”

“She tried to teach me,” Dell says, laughing and shaking her head. “But I told myself I could and would never swim! I used to lie across the water and she would hold me up, but when she let me go I would sink. In my mind I sucked my teeth and said I would never do that!”

One day, twenty years later, Dell put on a float belt and headed into the water, announcing: “I ready for allyuh this morning!”

Both Gilda and Dell credit ‘sister mermaid Erin’ as the main inspiration behind their swimming evolution.

Dell’s fear dropped the day Erin told her to remove the float belt, saying: “I know you can do it!”

“I started to doggy paddle,” Dell says. “Once I realized I was up, I went into the deep.”

Gilda’s moment of freedom came the day she forgot the float belt at home and subsequently realized she could float and tread water. There was no turning back.

“Since I learned to swim, being in the sea is therapy for me,” Gilda says. “It’s comforting. It’s somewhere I can be closer to God and it helps me to deal with things. If I can be there all day I will!”

“Now she’s happier in the water than she is out of it!” Erin exclaims. Apart from being a mermaid herself, she is a catalyst, inspiring Gilda and Dell to birth their confidence, determination and inner power in the water.

“If it wasn’t for the fear of sharks, I feel like I would be a woman who swims all over the ocean,” Erin says. It is this desire to swim further than their comfort zone of the bay that inspired her to suggest to Dell and Gilda . . . “Let’s swim from Milford Bay to Pigeon Point!”

When next the tide is high in the early morning, the mermaids will make their epic swim across the bay—something Gilda and Dell would never have considered a few months ago.

There are many unknowns,” Erin says. “The conditions of the sea change daily, the reef waves break and there are lots of rocks, so we need to go out super far!”

“My first thought about it was ‘Oh God!’” Dell exclaims.

Erin laughs. “Dell’s saying is ‘Lord Help Us’! That’s what we’re going to hear when we’re swimming out there. She’ll be calling on the Lord!”

“And I’ll be quiet!” Gilda chuckles.

“It’s only the Lord could help us out there,” Dell says. “I done plan already, anything I see I will just be calling Jesus!”

“We saw something today and we had to turn back,” Erin says, calmly, before recounting another potentially hair-raising moment. “Once we went out and got caught in a current. We went so far out, so fast—swimming, swimming, swimming and we weren’t moving. Everybody got quiet and Dell called on the Lord. There was a strength and power among the three of us to get centred and powerful and still. Then Gilda said ‘Let’s go this way’—and we found our way.”

When they’re not conquering the deep, or laughing loudly as they ride massive waves, the mermaids are eating beach breakfasts, sleeping on lounge chairs or enjoying full body sand scrubs.

“We swim all the time, but the sea is different every day—like life,” Erin says. “It helps you to appreciate the unique beauty of being in the moment.”

The water turns to different colours . . . double rainbows often arch above them . . . cloud shapes tell stories . . . schools of small fish flutter and splash toward them, reflecting their own joy and excitement at being in the ocean.

“Anyone, everyone can swim,” Erin says. “Transcend the fear and what holds you back in life through learning how to swim. Move past insecurities, doubts, the ‘I can’ts’ and ‘I nevers’ and ‘I had a bad childhood experience’. Once someone can move past that it opens up new possibilities of how they see themselves and what they can do in life. It will surprise them.”