Vandenberg

The USS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg (or simply Vandenberg for short) had a long and storied career before she ended up as an artificial reef down in the Florida Keys. She was originally a transport ship, built in 1943 and commissioned by the U.S. Navy in 1944 as a U.S. General G.O. Squire Class transport ship under the name USS General Taylor. She saw service during World War II in both European and Middle Eastern operations, and served in the Occupation Service in Europe from 1950 to 1955. She was placed in the reserve fleet before being reactivated by the U.S. Air Force and converted to a missile range instrumentation ship (which is when the two large radar dishes were added to her main deck). She tracked NASA launches, missile tests in the Pacific and spied on Russian missile tests during the Cold War. Her military career officially ended in 1993 but in 1996, she was used as a shooting location in a 1999 Hollywood movie, Virus, where she stood in for a Russian research vessel. Her final role began in May 2009, when she was towed out beyond the reef line and sunk as an artificial reef. She now sits upright at a depth of 148 feet (45 meters) with her highest point reaching just 60 feet (18 meters). At 522ft (159m) in length, she sports multiple dive buoys and divers from as many as five dive boats can be exploring this incredible reef at the same time without being crowded.