SCUBA diving is serious fun and we want you to enjoy it as much as we do. Our entry-level SCUBA programs, available through NAUI, PADI & SSI, are designed to get you, your family and friends into the water as quickly as possible, while at the same time, satisfying your individual training needs.
This is a great place to learn how to dive, and it has a wide selection of equipment. The staff are knowledgeable and very helpful. They offer excellent diving classes for both beginners and experienced divers.
With water temperatures between the 60s and 80s in winter, visibility can be expected to range from 30'-50'. To protect yourself from sharp edges and to prevent you getting into fishing lines, gloves are a must. A safety sausage is also a good idea since you will be on a boat trip.
Inshore diving can be defined as being less than 8 mi from St Andrew's Pass. This is more accessible to open-water divers. Red Sea, an 125-foot tug boat, was built in 2009 and is a notable dive. Also, the wreckage of the E. E. Simpson Tug which sank back in 1929 are also noteworthy. Stage 2 (a Navy platform which was demolished and rebuilt in 1984), Fontainebleau's Boxcars (two boxescars and related reef material) and two Voodoo planes that are anchored in Seltzer Reservoir make for interesting dives. Below is a list of all inshore dive locations in Panama City Beach, with their bottom depths.
The jetties at St. Andrews State Park offer the best beach dives available along the Emerald Coast. Depth on the channel side of the west jetty hits 70 feet in spots, and the rocks attract and hold a variety of sea life, including octopus, red snapper, redfish, grouper, and other tropical fish. If you time your dive to catch an incoming tide, it doesn’t get any better.
A Navy minesweeper tender measuring 184 feet in length and with a 33 foot beam, it was used as a training site for divers. Storms ripped the bow and it fell off the wreck's port side. The rest of the boat is still intact and stands upright, rising 20 feet off the bottom.
An 184-foot long Navy minesweeper tender with 33-foot beam was sunk in 1987 to serve as a diving rescue training site. The bow was broken by storms and fell to the port side. The boat's rest is intact, and it sits upright at 20 feet above the bottom.
Never hold your breath
As every good entry-level dive student knows, this is the most important rule of scuba. And for good reason — breath holding underwater can result in serious injury and even death. In accordance with Boyle's law, the air in a diver's lungs expands during ascent and contracts during descent.
As you become a qualified scuba diver, you learn the basics of an essential scuba system. A cylinder, weights, an exposure suit, regulators, BCD gauge and timing device, mask and fins are the bare essentials.