"The ship of all ships"

Only a few short days after divers first made the first descent, already some claim the newly-sunk Vandenberg to be one of the best.

A retired Air Force missile-tracking ship intentionally sunk to create an artificial reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
opened Saturday, May 30, to the public.

The 523-foot-long Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg is situated about seven miles south of Key West. The bottom of the ship’s hull rests on sand in depths that average 145 feet. But the ship is so massive that the superstructure begins about 45 feet below the surface.

“I’ve dove a lot of ships,” said Tom Kanczuzewski of South Bend, Ind., after surfacing Saturday. “This is the ship of all ships. I’d love to come back in a year and see all the fishes.”

Saturday morning, a lone barracuda patrolled the superstructure of the ship that once tracked the U.S. space program’s launches off Cape Canaveral, monitored U.S. defense missile test launches and eavesdropped on Russian missile launches during the Cold War.

But project organizers think it’s just a matter of days before additional marine life takes up residence.

The wreck is already fulfilling its promise of attracting visitors to the Florida Keys.

“We have calls coming in from as far as Germany and Norway from people planning to come just to dive this wreck,” said Bob Holston, owner of Dive Key West and president of the Keys Association of Dive Operators. “We have more pre-bookings for the summer now than we’ve had in 38 years of being in business.

"This is probably going to be one of the world’s classiest wrecks to dive," Holston said. "And it’s just a corner piece of the wreck trek of the Florida Keys.

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We don't know about you, but we can't wait to get over to the Keys!