The Mermaid statues of Daydream Island

The mermaid statues were named Serenity, Aphrodisia and Infinity, representing respectively mind, body and spirit.

The Sculptor

The three mermaids were made around 2002 by Queensland sculptor David Joffe and his Brisbane studio, Natureworks. Joffe began as a cadet museum preparator at the Queensland Museum in 1971, training in taxidermy, skeletal mounting and diorama-building, before leaving in 1979 to apply those museum techniques to commercial sculpture. The mermaids were cast at one and a half times life size, each shaped to sit on her own rock, and were commissioned by then-owner Vaughan Bullivant as part of his reinvention of the resort.

The Legend

Local folklore holds that the three mermaids represent the sirens said to have lured Captain Cook's ships as they passed north through the Whitsundays. Cook did chart these waters in 1770; the mermaids are a piece of sailors' storytelling rather than anything in the ship's log, but they give the island its theme.

Daydream Island Resort and Spa pretty much takes up the entire island.   The resort is split in two - one part on the north end of the island, the other on the south end, with the middle being mountainous rock rising up about 150 feet from sea level.   It is a tropical paradise, with more than a touch of a mermaid theme.

After the Cyclone

Ahead of the resort's April 2019 reopening, Daydream ran a national competition inviting Australian artists to submit a tribute to Serenity, Aphrodisia and Infinity. Three finalists were chosen by public vote and commissioned to create their concepts for the island, unveiled in 2019 as a temporary art installation. The three original statues, however, were never recovered from the sea or restored to their rocks — the mermaids now live on chiefly in the resort's tribute artworks and its logo, which pairs them with the stingrays of the new Living Reef lagoon.