Nice place for a dive, no?

Mermaids need open water. While the abundance of smaller mer-friendly venues is appreciated, there’s nothing like stretching your fins in the open sea. Of course, land is precious in Second Life, and mermaiding not popular enough to warrant the dedication of large sims for our aquatic pursuits.

Light cracking through large rocks.

A digital shipwreck left over from a long-passed digital storm.

I had the great fortune to be introduced to the Blake Sea the other day, apparently the product of an agreement between a large in-world sailing group and Linden Lab. As you can see, it’s huge. It’s mostly barren with sparse vegetation and sea-life, but there are a few interesting islands and hidden places about it. Siren’s Isle is probably the most mer-friendly of the bunch.

Thats A LOT of water. Click for large version.

But the best part about this, like the Degrand Channel, is that as it is Linden-backed, it won’t be disappearing any time soon. Not that you should delay your trip—get out there! Maybe we’ll cross paths.

• SLURL: Siren’s Isle

The Degrand Channel is a large, open expanse of water six sims wide. Across those sims you will find the remains of an ancient land-dwelling civilization, underwater volcanoes, shipwrecks from times past and present, and a number of treasure chests holding relics for your avatar. After some inspection, it looks to be a project of the Linden Department of Public Works. Their work here is to be applauded!

I can’t stress the amount of detail and interesting things to see here. Hope to see you all there!

• SLURL: The Degrand Channel

Beautiful, mostly underwater sim. Has an awesome sea floor texture (the lack of which is usually a pet peeve of mine in other underwater areas). Many fun things to see and do as a mer, including…

Ruins with a scavenger hunt game

Giant sphere theater to watch some trippy animated textures and fish

An underwater castle that will crumble if you’re not too careful…

Make haste here, finned-folk!

• SLURL: Sea of Tranquility
• Flickr Photoset (more photos here).

I’m always looking for interesting places to stretch my fins on the grid, and I want you to come along too!

I forgot who passed this LM along to me a while back, I think it was ColeMarie, but there’s a nice underwater area in the Hobbit Nature Preserve (I did not see any hobbits, however). You can’t really tell from the surface, it’s a psychedelic mermaid playground underneath.

See what I mean? Granted, I did some color adjustment, but there are a lot of glowy plants and rocks with wild textures.

Make sure you look out for this cave. I love its texture. I wish the entire sim floor were coated in this. Looks so wet and shiny! Oooooh! I want to touch it! Mermaids love to touch. It really bothers me when you have a lovely underwater area with lots of interesting things, but then a boring, default sand ground texture.

The LM won’t land you right at the intended spot, due to the region setting, but just follow the red beacon on your map and you’ll be there soon enough.

• SLURL: Hobbit Nature Preserve
• More photos in my Flickr Photoset

Is there somewhere you think I should swim@? Get in touch!

I’m always looking for interesting places to stretch my fins on the grid, and I want you to come along too!

I know this SIM has been around for a little while, today was my first visit. There’s actually a mermaid-specific underwater area that’s stunning (which I ran across on flickr here). There are a few tacky full-bright novelty cutouts here and there that spoil the atmosphere a bit, but the good far outweighs the bad. This is one of the best aquatic spots I’ve been to in a long time. Come look!

There’s an automated tour that takes you through the build. Two can go at a time. Just click on the poseballs, and enjoy the ride. With much praise to the architect, there are separate tours for mermaids scuba divers (with appropriate animations for each). With the tour, you are free to relax and easily take a few snapshots around your avatar.

This place reminded me why I am a mermaid, and what’s so amazing about being a mermaid. There’s nothing like a glide through a cool, deep, hidden alien world, letting your fins be brushed by the flowing sea.

• SLURL: Sweet Mermaids Underwater Tour
• My Flickr Photoset: Sweet Mermaids

Is there somewhere you think I should swim@? Get in touch!

Boojum is a cluster of Caribbean islands that features some mer-friendly areas. Do try the “pose bubbles” in the middle of the gathering area you see pictured; they’ll take you on a soothing swim that will rotate your camera and relax you. Enjoy the reggae on the local stream as well. I didn’t get many good photos of this place, and one of the resident hostesses told me that there was a bit more to explore, so I’ll be going back. Anyone care to join me?

• SLURL: Boojum
• Flickr Photoset: Boojum

Not necessarily an aquatic sim, but this build near Tekelili Tantalus’ Dark Creations shop does have a lovely network of caves which can be toured completely by water (boats are offered for setanim and other land-walkers). Use Torley’s "That Spells Moon 4" windlight preset for best results.

• SURL: Hollow Earth
• Flickr Photoset: Hollow Earth

There are some interesting sculptures, alien vegetation, and underwater art to see in this Rezzable sim. It’s a bit sparse, but worth a trip. These are the kinds of things I need to see more of in aquatic sims, not giant clamshells and pearls.

• SLURL: Neptune’s Maze
• Flickr Photoset: Neptune’s Maze

A mermaid’s dream. Five sims of open water! Used mostly for pirate battles, but mermaids are a welcome part of the events there. Worth a trip.

Explore Beek Haven.

More photos on my flickr.

A fantastic seabed teeming with life, underwater volcanoes, shipwrecks, and hidden places. Explore The Garden of Da Vinci.