Want to escape winter? Here’s your chance to visit Key Largo in Florida Keys

Are you tired of the cold weather in Ontario and looking to escape the winter?

CHCH News is offering viewers the chance to win a taste of the subtropical Florida Keys.

Each morning this week, the Morning Live team will explore a destination in the Florida Keys. The first top today was Key Largo, the longest and northernmost island in the Keys.

Key Largo is bordered on the west by Florida Bay and the Everglades National Park backcountry, and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, home to the clear waters of the Gulf Stream.

Visitors can enjoy Key Largo’s ties to the sea with attractions including scuba diving, snorkeling, an underwater hotel, sport fishing, eco-tours, beaches and dolphin encounter programs.

The most popular attraction in Key Largo is the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, the first underwater preserve in the United States.

In shallow waters adjacent to the park at a site called Key Largo Dry Rocks is the nine-foot-tall bronze “Christ of the Deep” statue, an iconic landmark for divers and snorkelers.

“It’s a phenomenal place to see,” said Joy Boyd, general manager of Baker’s Cay Resort in Key Largo. “Definitely should be on your bucket list. Just a beautiful array of coral and ships.”

Pennekamp is part of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, which covers about 3,800 square miles of coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangrove swamp on both sides of the Keys island chain and throughout the surrounding waters of Florida Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. The sanctuary’s indigenous population is made up of more than 6,000 species of marine life and plants.

For more information about the contest and how to enter, visit https://www.www.chch.com/keystoadventure.