John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is a Florida State Park

Florida State Parks

The Florida State Parks encompass the majority of the lands that fall under the authority of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. There are 160 such entities, including nature reserves, recreation areas, and historic sites, which can be found in every corner of the state...

 located on Key Largo

Key Largo

Key Largo is an island in the upper Florida Keys archipelago and, at long, the largest of the Keys. It is also the northernmost of the Florida Keys in Monroe County, and the northernmost of the Keys connected by U.S. Highway 1...

 in Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, and includes approximately 70 nautical square miles

Nautical mile

The nautical mile is a unit of length that is about one minute of arc of latitude along any meridian, but is approximately one minute of arc of longitude only at the equator...

 (240 km²) of adjacent Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 waters. It was the first underwater park in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on April 14, 1972. The primary attractions of the park are the coral reef

Coral reef

Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...

s (such as Molasses Reef

Molasses Reef

Molasses Reef is a coral reef located within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It lies to the southeast of Key Largo, within the Key Largo Existing Management Area, which is immediately to the east of John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park...

) and their associated marine life.

In Fiscal Year 2004 the park had more than a million visitors, making it the most popular park in the Florida State Parks system. The Florida Keys

Florida Keys

The Florida Keys are a coral archipelago in southeast United States. They begin at the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West, the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry...

 and the Flower Garden Banks in the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast are the only living coral reef formations in the continental United States.

History

Plans to designate the reefs off Key Largo for a park started in the 1930s. The state-sanctioned, Everglades National Park Commission proposed a national park for the Everglades

Everglades

The Everglades are subtropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large watershed. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee...

, including the reefs off Key Largo. Opposition from property owners, outdoors men, and Monroe County

Monroe County, Florida

Monroe County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 79,589. The U.S. Census Bureau 2006 estimate for the county was 74,737....

 Commissioners stopped the plan. When Everglades National Park

Everglades National Park

Everglades National Park is a national park in the U.S. state of Florida that protects the southern 25 percent of the original Everglades. It is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, and is visited on average by one million people each year. It is the third-largest...

 was created in 1947, the boundaries did not include Key Largo or any of the reefs.

By the late 1950s, citizens were growing concerned of the damage occurring to the reefs along the Florida Keys. Seashell

Seashell

A seashell or sea shell, also known simply as a shell, is a hard, protective outer layer created by an animal that lives in the sea. The shell is part of the body of the animal. Empty seashells are often found washed up on beaches by beachcombers...

s, coral

Coral

Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...

s, sponges, sea horses, and other marine life were being hammered, chiseled, and even dynamited from the reefs to provide souvenir

Souvenir

A souvenir , memento, keepsake or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. The term souvenir brings to mind the mass-produced kitsch that is the main commodity of souvenir and gift shops in many tourist traps around the world...

s for tourists. Dr. Gilbert L. Voss of the Marine Institute of Miami and John D. Pennekamp, an editor with the Miami Herald, teamed up to lead a fight to protect the reefs from further damage. Pennekamp had strong credentials for the fight. He had been active in establishing Everglades National Park, had been the first chairman of the Florida Board of Parks and Historic Memorials, and had been a consultant with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service

United States Fish and Wildlife Service

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal government agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats...

.

These efforts led the Florida Board of Parks and Historic Memorials to designate the state-controlled reefs off Key Largo a permanent preserve. In the spring of 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

 proclaimed the adjacent, federally-controlled area of the reefs as the Key Largo Coral Reef Preserve. Florida Governor Leroy Collins

LeRoy Collins

Thomas LeRoy Collins was the 33rd Governor of Florida.-Early life:Collins was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida, where he attended Leon High School. He went on to attend the Eastman Business College in New York and then went on to the Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama to...

 later changed the name of the park to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, in recognition of John Pennekamp's efforts to save marine life. A land base and access to U.S. 1

U.S. Route 1 in Florida

U.S. Route 1 in Florida runs along the state's east coast from Key West to its crossing of the St. Marys River into Georgia north of Boulogne, and south of Folkston. US 1 was designated through Florida when the U.S. Highway System was established in 1926.US 1 runs in the state of Florida, and...

 (the Overseas Highway

Overseas Highway

The Overseas Highway is a highway carrying U.S. Route 1 through the Florida Keys. Large parts of it were built on the former right-of-way of the Overseas Railroad, the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Completed in 1912, the Overseas Railroad was heavily damaged and partially...

) were acquired by purchase and donation. The park opened in 1963.

Recreational activities

The reefs may be viewed from glass-bottom boats, or by snorkeling

Snorkeling

Snorkeling is the practice of swimming on or through a body of water while equipped with a diving mask, a shaped tube called a snorkel, and usually swimfins. In cooler waters, a wetsuit may also be worn...

 or scuba diving

Scuba diving

Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....

. Other activities available in the park are canoeing

Canoeing

Canoeing is an outdoor activity that involves a special kind of canoe.Open canoes may be 'poled' , sailed, 'lined and tracked' or even 'gunnel-bobbed'....

, kayak

Kayak

A kayak is a small, relatively narrow, human-powered boat primarily designed to be manually propelled by means of a double blade paddle.The traditional kayak has a covered deck and one or more cockpits, each seating one paddler...

ing, fishing

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

, hiking

Hiking

Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often in mountainous or other scenic terrain. People often hike on hiking trails. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous hiking organizations worldwide. The health benefits of different types of hiking...

, picnic

Picnic

In contemporary usage, a picnic can be defined simply as a pleasure excursion at which a meal is eaten outdoors , ideally taking place in a beautiful landscape such as a park, beside a lake or with an interesting view and possibly at a public event such as before an open air theatre performance,...

king, swimming and wildlife

Wildlife

Wildlife includes all non-domesticated plants, animals and other organisms. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on the environment, both positive and negative....

 viewing. Full-facility and youth/group campgrounds are available.

The visitor center

Visitor center

A visitor center or centre , visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to the visitors who tour the place or area locally...

 features a 30000 gallons (113,562.4 l) saltwater aquarium

Aquarium

An aquarium is a vivarium consisting of at least one transparent side in which water-dwelling plants or animals are kept. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, marine mammals, turtles, and aquatic plants...

 and six smaller aquaria, as well as natural history

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

 exhibits about the park's different biological communities and ecosystems and a theater showing nature videos

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

.

Christ of the Abyss

One of the most famous residents of Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is the Christ of the Abyss

Christ of the Abyss

Christ of the Abyss is a submerged bronze statue of Jesus, located in the Mediterranean Sea off San Fruttuoso between Camogli and Portofino on the Italian Riviera. It was placed in the water on 22 August 1954 at approximately 17 metres depth, and stands c...

, located near Dry Rocks

Dry Rocks (reef)

Dry Rocks is a coral reef located within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It lies to the east of Key Largo, within the Key Largo Existing Management Area, which is immediately to the east of John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. The reef lies within a Sanctuary Preservation Area...

. The 8+1/2 ft statue of Jesus Christ weighs 4000 pounds (1,814.4 kg) and sits in nearly 25 feet (7.6 m) of water. It is a popular site for scuba divers and snorkelers.

The statue is a third casting of Il Cristo Degli Abissi in the Mediterranean Sea

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 near Genoa, Italy, which was placed there in 1954. The Christ of the Abyss was donated to the Underwater Society of America in 1961 by Italian scuba entrepreneur Egidio Cressi and placed in its current location in 1965. In their current position, the two statues face each other.

External links

• John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park - official site with tour information
• John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park - Florida State Parks official site