From Powell River to Grand Cayman: Simon Morris on Art, Diving, and Marine Conservation
For the True North Compliance Podcast, I look for stories where creativity, regulation, and real-world impact come together. In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with underwater bronze sculptor and long-time dive professional Simon Morris. Simon has spent decades placing his work on the seafloor in places like Powell River, Grand Cayman, and the Florida Panhandle, where his art becomes living reef and a powerful tool for marine conservation and tourism.
Simon’s journey started young. As a teenager, he was already welding abstract steel sculptures with marine themes in a home studio his father helped set up. That early passion eventually led to his first major underwater bronze, the Emerald Princess, a nine-foot mermaid placed in Saltery Bay near Powell River, British Columbia. That single piece did more than just delight divers; the surrounding park was renamed Mermaid Cove Provincial Park, and it quickly became a destination for the diving community.
From there, the scale of Simon’s projects, and the complexity of the rules around them, only grew. In the episode, he walks us through the maze of permits and approvals needed to put a permanent sculpture in the ocean. In Canada, that includes multiple layers of government plus, critically, the blessing of the relevant First Nation. In Grand Cayman, his pieces Amphitrite and The Guardian of The Reef had to pass through a detailed Coastal Works application focused on environmental safety. In Florida, his Poseidon Memorial Reef near Destin shows how a proactive local government can turn artificial reefs into a win for the environment, tourism, and the local economy.
What struck me most is how carefully Simon designs his installations to “first do no harm.” He uses environmental bronze, which is the same metal as ship propellers, and specially formulated concrete bases with a “critter friendly” pH that attracts marine life. He chooses flat, lifeless sandy bottoms and takes baseline samples so scientists can monitor the impact over time. Over the years, his sculptures have become thriving micro-reefs, covered in sponges, anemones, and corals, and serving as training grounds for divers of all abilities.
Simon’s stories are also deeply human. One of the most moving moments in our conversation was his memory of guiding a blind diver down a ramp built by the British Columbia Association of Disabled Divers to meet the Emerald Princess. She took off her gloves and explored the mermaid by touch for twenty minutes in cold water, then surfaced and simply said, “She is beautiful.” It is hard to hear that and not understand why Simon does what he does.
If you care about art, the ocean, or just how to navigate big, complex projects in highly regulated environments, you will get a lot from this conversation. This episode of the True North Compliance Podcast can be found on most podcast apps. I invite you to listen in and see how Simon Morris turns compliance, patience, and passion into underwater art that truly makes a difference.
