Instructors

Ema Dusky, the owner and instructor of Lil Mermaids LLC, has been in the water for over 20 years. She joined a club swim team at the age of 6, where she set multiple team records, and joined a club water polo team at age 12. She has competed in multiple national meets and tournaments and has gone through the Olympic Development Program. Unfortunately, she was injured in her teenage years, temporarily ending her career. She continued teaching and instructing swimming and water polo, and despite her injury was offered a full ride to a Division 1 college across the country for swimming. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, she again had to retire and move back home to California. Within a few months of being home she began coaching the Sonoma Valley High School's boys water polo team. She currently is the head coach of the Varsity boys, Varsity girls, and JV boys water polo teams at SVHS, and has started a club water polo team with Sonoma Splash called the Sonoma Seamonsters. She is also a trained lifeguard, and often plays with the Napa Valley Masters water polo team in Napa, and hopes to create a Masters Team in Sonoma one day. In 2023, she decided she wanted to give people the opportunity to try out her favorite water activity yet... becoming a mermaid! The first time she ever got in the pool in a tail, she ended up spending nearly 4 hours in the water. Needless to say, it's been hard for her to stay out since.