Scott Mc Kiernan Presents zReportage.com Issue #1003 Story of the Week: Published TUESDAY September 2, 2025: ‘Weeki Wachee Sirens’ Photography by ZUMA Partner newspaper The Tampa Bay Times Pulitzer winning photo-journalist Douglas R. Clifford and story by award winning writer Gabrielle Calise: The water is cold, but I’m too nervous to shiver. I try to kick to safety, but my legs are bound. I’m wearing the tail of a mermaid, I’ve never felt more painfully human. ‘You OK?’ asks Rita, one of the ”Legendary Sirens of Weeki Wachee,” mermaid performers from decades past. ‘Want to try it again?’ Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, one of the last mid-century roadside attractions left in Florida is home to the deepest freshwater cave system in the US. In 1946, when ex-Navy frogman Newton Perry discovered the spring, he didn’t know it was the entrance to a collection of deep underwater caverns. But he had a vision: a sunken theater, where people could watch pretty women do water ballet and chug grape soda underwater. Welcome to ‘Weeki Wachee Sirens’
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