The USS Nimitz transits Puget Sound during the ship’s final departure from Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton, Wash., March 7, 2026. (Ibarra Ruiz/U.S. Navy)
BREMERTON, Wash. — USS Nimitz departed Friday for military exercises in the Southern Command area, the Navy said Saturday.
“Nimitz is deploying to the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility this spring as part of U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. 4th Fleet’s Southern Seas 2026 deployment,” Lt. Cmdr. Peter Pagano, spokesman for the carrier, said in an email from aboard the ship.
It departed Bremerton, its longtime homeport, for the last time.
The Navy’s oldest carrier, commissioned in 1975, had been scheduled to depart its homeport at Naval Base Kitsap near Seattle to arrive in mid-April to begin decommissioning. It arrived at Kitsap in December from Asia and the Middle East at the end of what the Navy at the time said was its final deployment.
Pagano said details of the new deployment are still under development.
The Navy has not yet announced plans for South Seas 2026. The exercise last took place in April 2024 and included port calls in Peru, Chile and Brazil by the carrier USS George Washington.
Nimitz will still shift homeports from Kitsap to Naval Station Norfolk, Va. The Nimitz is too large to use the Panama Canal, so it must make the estimated 12,400-nautical-mile voyage from Bremerton, around Cape Horn at the tip of South America, then north to Norfolk.
Pagano did not comment on how participation in the exercise might affect the timeline for decommissioning the Navy laid out last year.
“Detailed planning is currently underway for Nimitz to visit several partner states on the ship’s circumnavigation of the continent of South America, en route to its new homeport,” Pagano said. “Additional details on the upcoming Southern Seas 2026 deployment, such as participating and embarked units, will be released before it begins.”
The departure of the Nimitz leaves one carrier, USS Ronald Reagan, at Kitsap. The USS Ronald Reagan is undergoing a 17-month overhaul scheduled to end later this year. The Navy has announced plans to homeport the future USS John F. Kennedy at Kitsap as early as 2029.
