While a Mermaid rising from the sea is usually a welcome sight when you are without a ship, there are times when it can lead to disappointment. A poorly positioned Mermaid, waiting to whisk you back to your vessel, can accidentally ruin an ambush or other sneaky pirate shenanigans. That’s when you will be wishing you had an Enchanted Merfruit handy.
With the power of a cooked Merfruit, you can prevent your eager Mermaid from appearing briefly, allowing you to pull off the perfect heist!
What is Merfruit?
Merfruit is a rare Fruit that can temporarily suppress your Mermaid from appearing for two minutes. To use the Merfruit’s unique ability, you must enchant the Fruit by cooking it for 20 seconds before eating it. Once cooked, the Merfruit will become Enchanted Merfruit and prevent your Mermaid from emerging or send it away after you eat it.

You can eat Merfruit before enchanting it to recover about half of your health. However, eating Enchanted Merfruit will only suppress your Mermaid and not replenish your health.
After you eat an Enchanted Merfruit, you can keep track of how long until the Mermaid suppression wears off by checking the Merfolk Suppression Timer that appears when you open your Item Radial. It is the Mermaid icon surrounded by a teal circle.

How do you use Merfruit?
To use the Merfruit’s unique ability, you first need to cook it until it becomes Enchanted Merfruit. You can cook Merfruit on any stove across the Sea of Thieves, from your ship’s stoves to a Campfire on an island.
You’ll know you’ve cooked the Merfruit properly when its color turns purple and it starts to glow! Just make sure you don’t overcook your Enchanted Merfruit. You can burn Merfruit like other Food, preventing it from becoming Enchanted Merfruit.
Once you cook the Merfruit so it becomes Enchanted Merfruit, eat it when you are ready to hide, and you will prevent your Mermaid from coming to your aid for two minutes.
During the two minutes, Merfolk will no longer emerge from the water for you. However, Merfolk can still appear for other pirates, including crewmates who haven’t eaten an Enchanted Merfruit, as the Fruit’s ability only affects the pirate who ate the Fruit.
Eating Enchanted Merfruit does not prevent you from using other pirates’ Mermaids.
While you can’t stack the Merfolk Suppression Timer, you can replenish it by eating another Enchanted Merfruit before it runs out. So, if you have about 20 seconds left until the suppression ends, you can eat another Enchanted Merfruit to reset the timer to two minutes. You also cannot cancel the timer. Once you’ve eaten an Enchanted Merfruit, you need to wait for the timer to run out before your Mermaid will appear.

Where can you find Merfruit?
You can find Merfruit randomly in Storage Containers across the Sea of Thieves, such as Resource Barrels, Rowboats, and Storage Crates. While you can find them on Outposts, you are much more likely to find them at sea while exploring islands, shipwrecks, and Barrels of Plenty as they have a lower chance of appearing on Outposts. Merfruit are about as rare as Pineapple.
Merfruit shares inventory capacity with other Foods. However, Enchanted Merfruit has a separate inventory capacity from Food. You can carry up to three Enchanted Merfruit in your inventory on top of five pieces of Food.
Holding up to three Enchanted Merfruit will allow you to suppress your Merfolk for up to six minutes if you time it right!