The Mermaid In Meditation

When Hanli Prinsloo was little, she dreamt of being a mermaid. Her ‘ocean’ was the dam near her home on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

- Hanli Prinsloo

When Hanli Prinsloo was little, she dreamt of being a mermaid. Her ‘ocean’ was the dam near her home on the outskirts of Johannesburg. These days, in the water, when she freedives, she is a mermaid; when she dives up to 65 meters, holding a single breath, on her feet is a mermaid-shaped fin.

“When you go underwater, you don’t talk, you look inwards and you just experience the ocean and the animal and plant life around you. For your mind, being underwater is a state of meditation,” says Prinsloo.

Now, Prinsloo has made the sea her living. She takes tourists to swim with manta rays, frolic with dolphins and look at shoals of fish swirling in the deep.

“It took a remarkably long time for the pennies to drop... People don’t want to travel to shop anymore, or buy things, people are more interested in renting an island than buying a Maserati. They want exceptional experiences. They want to know their money is spent in an unusual way

“We teach freediving, yoga and ocean awareness always in conjunction with a hero animal.”

This is the brainchild of Prinsloo; leading the affluent from the boardroom to the bounties of the ocean.

“The people we work with are the decision-makers and influence-makers. We sometimes forget that whether it’s big corporations or governments it’s still people. I feel we need the big decision-makers to understand more than on a scientific level,” says Prinsloo.