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Christ of the Deep celebrates 50 years below the waves.
How long can you hold your arms over your head? How about five decades?
Sunk in 1965, Key Largo‘s beloved Christ of the Deep statue has welcomed daily hordes of snorkelers and divers for 50 years now. The 9-foot statue, which stands in a coral garden at about 25 feet, was a gift of the Cressi family, a replica of Italian sculptor Guido Galletti’s Il Cristo degli Abissi, or Christ of the Abyss, sunk off Portofino, Italy. It took a steamship, the Illinois National Guard and a Navy Reserve plane to get it to Florida, where it’s been signaling a divine touchdown ever since.