The USS Saratoga is an incredible dive. I don’t think I can stress that enough. This shipwreck is absolutely enormous, we did 7 dives on the wreck and barely scratched the surface. The ship is remarkably intact given that it was nuked twice. Everything forward of the conning tower and midship elevator is in great shape, the forward compartments can be easily entered and explored. The interior of this ship feels like swimming through the remains of some giant underwater office building. In our dives on the Saratoga we were able to explore her medical, dental, and surgical rooms, the galley and cafeteria, an incredibly large and well stocked machine shop, the Combat Information Center (CIC), and the captains and admirals quarters. Because the ship was sunk fully loaded artifacts can be found (but not taken), throughout the wreck including racks china in the galley, medicine bottles, diving helmets, ordinance, and tools. The exterior of the ship is still bristling with anti-aircraft guns along a wide open flight deck.

Moving aft the bomb damage is more apparent. The flight deck above the hangar bay has completely collapsed, and much of the stern of the wreck is starting to cave in on itself. In the now open hangar space its possible to see the remains of an aircraft, as well as bomb racks filled with large aerial bombs. The conning tower still stands intact and reaches to within 60 ft of the surface, while the flight deck is at 100 ft. The seabed around the wreck is about 145 ft, and several aircraft can be found next to the Saratoga that were washed over the side during the Baker explosion. Below are some of my videos and photos from my Saratoga dives.