Hello you all. I'm new at the forum, have a Mermaid Kat fin and Mahina fin, fabric tail and looking into some other fabric tails, as well as working on ideas to make my own tail. I've already found lots of interesting threads on this forum before I became a member, so thank you all, you helped me a lot! At least I now know what materials to use and what better not.

So, I live in Waarland, which is next to Heerhugowaard, and in a triangle with Alkmaar and Schagen, in the North of Holland. Waarland has it's own outside swimming pool which opens at the start of May (now open) and closes at the end of summer when it becomes too cold to swimoutside. The swimming pool is very relaxed and openminded with mermaids and monofins. On weekdays they open from 14 to 17 and in the evening's from 19 to 20.30, in weekends it's from 12 to 17 and from 19 to 20.30.

I was wondering if there's any merpeople living nearby, or if living farther away, wishing to meet up some time? For those interested but without monofins or tails, I have some extra so you can try out. I have several fabric tails and fins in child size, and the neighbor kids love borrowing them under my and the swimming team's supervision, and I also have a few Mermaid Kat fins that I was able to take over from someone else. As well as the similar So Dive / Sweam / Sommap fins, which have less of a mermaid shape, but whom I might shape more mermaidy in future.

I think it would be great meeting up with other mers and trying out different fins from one another, or helping eachother by trying out before making a choice in which one to order oneself.

I have recently started my Padi Mermaid course, consisting of Padi Basic Mermaid, Padi Mermaid, and Padi Mermaid Advanced. I swim in Leimuiden with Dive Inc, Ingrid van Gerven, she also teaches on different locations. For the deep diving part we still need to pick a location, as there are a few options. After this I wish to get all the certificates I need and then go for Padi Mermaid Instructor and finally Padi Instructor Trainer as well. Or at least, I think it'd be totally awesome to do so.
I know Ingrid teaches in the South of Holland as well as in the North of Holland, and I know she is looking for more students, as she needs to have handed out a certain amount of certificates before she is allowed to join the Padi Mermaid Instructor Trainer course in Paris, France, as she is the only Padi Mermaid Instructor in Holland. There are some locations in Holland from SSI offering Mermaid courses as well, I think about 4 locations? But they were all way longer traveling, and they are same level, SSI and Padi.

So, whoever wishes to join an officially worldwide acknowledged Mermaid course like diving schools Padi and SSI offer nowadays, give some thought to the one and only Padi Mermaid Instructor in our country and help her reach her goal, so she can help others reach theirs...!

I hope some of you will reply, and perhaps be interested in meeting up. Age is unimportant.

Isn't the saying 'you're as old as you feel'? - I'm as much a child as the rest, I just have some more years of experience. *smiles*