Panama City Beach is a great place to drive or dive from the South. It's possible to dive Sunday morning and return home on time. Visibility is between 30'-50ft with water temperatures in the 60s and 80s during winter. For boat trips, you should bring gloves to protect your hands from the sharp edges of the wrecks and a diving knife for fishing line.
Technical Divers can go far beyond recreational diving. This may be longer, deeper, overhead, and with more exotic gas mixtures in order to manage nrcosis. If you are a proficient diver and wish to see the deepest end of the pool. This is how to get there. Our services include Introto Tech, Advanced Nitrox & Deco Procedures as well as Trimix, Advanced Trimix, Trimix, and other options. We offer fun classes with experts in the field who use top quality gear at affordable prices. Spearfishing involves underwater bow hunting. It's neither difficult nor cheap to learn. And it's much more addictive than crack. You might want to clean, ethical, and non-industrially-produced protein.
Panama City Beach boasts a vast array of artificial coral material. Material options include old piers, bridge pilings, and custom-designed reef habitats. While these sites won't attract divers by themselves most of them will draw divers when they are surrounded in reef modules and sunken ships. Warsaw Reef is the best reef dive. It's a natural cave with concrete rubble, tire bundles and other debris. It's a popular spot for fish. They travel to the hole from nearby wrecks, such as the Black Bart.
Inshore diving is defined as less than 8 miles from St Andrew's Pass. It is generally safe for open water divers. The Red Sea, a tugboat measuring 125 feet, was installed here in 2009. It is also home to the E. E. Simpson Tug, which sank in 1929. Stage 2 (a Navy platform, which was destroyed in 1984), Fountainbleau Boxcars (2 boxcars with associated reef material) and a pair Voodoo Jets anchoring in Seltzer Reef are other interesting locations. Below is a table listing inshore dive locations in Panama City Beach and their associated bottom depths.
Mexico Beach Artificial Reef Association members and Florida Wildlife Commission produced a report that assessed the impacts on the reefs. The report found that the Varmar reef, which isn't shown on the map because it's not in Mexico Beach, experienced the most damage.
Dive Locker is a new dive shop that can be a great asset for divers. You can also get certified by PADI, the largest scuba certification agency in the world. You will be a better diver and more confident thanks to their expertise.
Below is a list of all inshore dive spots in Panama City Beach along with the associated bottom depths. Our threshold to dive offshore is greater than 8 miles from St Andrew's Pass. These sites require advanced certification. Nitrox certification is a good idea. These trips aren't available every day because of the distances involved.
An Average Diver, at an Average Depth, With an Average Tank
Based on personal experience, an average open-water certified diver using a standard aluminum 80-cubic-foot tank on a 40-foot dive will be able to stay down for about 45 to 60 minutes before surfacing with a safe reserve of air still in the tank.
So just to reiterate: don't grab animals, don't hold them for photo ops, don't go for rides on dolphins or turtles, and don't force puffer fish to inflate (it can be fatal to them).