The Christ of the Abyss Sits Twenty-Five Feet Down

Nine-foot bronze statue of Christ, arms raised toward the surface, on the ocean floor at Key Largo Dry Rocks in John Pennekamp State Park. Third casting of an Italian original from Portofino, placed here in 1965. On calm days you can snorkel to it and see the figure from the surface — arms reaching through schools of sergeant majors and yellowtail snapper.

The bronze has gone green with encrustation, which makes it look less placed and more grown, like the ocean claimed it. Fire coral and brain coral colonize the base. Tiny Christmas tree worms — electric blue and orange — spiral from the rock and retract when you breathe on them. Most people are so locked onto getting the statue photo that they miss the entire reef around it, which is the better show.

It was installed as a memorial to those who died at sea. Something about encountering a religious figure in a space where humans are guests — light filtered, silence total except your own breathing — hits different from any church. The fish treat the statue the same as they treat the coral, which is its own kind of sermon.