Panama City Beach & Destin, FL Scuba Diving and Snorkelling

While Panama City, Florida might be better known for college spring break, anyone interested in Panama City Beach & Destin FL scuba diving and snorkeling should be happy to know that more than a dozen excellent wrecks and diving sites can be found right off the coastal area of the Florida Panhandle.  You'll be diving in the Upper Grand Lagoon, which leads right into the Gulf of Mexico, as well as further out in the Gulf itself. Destin is located half way between Panama City Beach and Pensacola, Florida, allowing scuba divers their choice of diving experiences between the two sets of diving areas each city section has to offer.




If you're looking for a quiet getaway, Shell Island tends to be one of the best kept secrets in the Panama City Beach to Destin FL area and includes sparsely populated beaches, tons of shells including sand dollars, and a lot of dolphin sightings. This is a great family gathering place after a week of running around.  When you're ready to head back out on the water, check out one of the major marinas like Bay Point Marina, Bayside Marina, or Lighthouse Marina around Panama City Beach or the East Finger Jetties around Destin Florida.

When it comes to diving sites, you'll have some major decisions to make any time you decide to enjoy Panama City Beach and Destin, FL scuba diving and snorkeling.  Three extremely popular dive spots that come up a lot in discussion are Black Bart, E.E. Simpson, and Tarpon.  These three are consistently mentioned as some of the best dive sites you can find between Panama City Beach and Destin.

Black Bart is located at Degrees/Minutes/Seconds N 30 03 39 W 085 49 26 and is an artificial reef named in memory of Captain Charles Bartholomew, who served as Navy Supervisor of Salvage in Panama City for years. The Captain loved diving and worked tirelessly on helping to create many artificial reefs around the Panama City Beach and Destin communities. The artificial wreckage here is a 185-foot long oil field supply ship that sits upright and is approximately 70 to 75 feet deep, while the upper parts of the bridge of the sip can be reached at around 40 feet.  Several parts of the ship are open for divers to explore, although it should always be done with caution.  

The Black Bart diving site is often used for wreck training and is also a favorite among underwater photographers because of the incredible populations of fish throughout and all around surrounding the ship.  Aside from huge numbers of baitfish, divers have reported seeing catfish, grouper, and flounder on a pretty consistent basis.  If you're lucky you might even occasionally get a visit from a curious turtle.  Recently as a joke, on Halloween a diver added a skeleton with mask and snorkel and chained it to the wheelhouse, so don't freak out if you spot a skeleton staring you underwater.  

Much closer to shore, the E.E. Simpson tugboat wreck can be found at a location of Degrees/Minutes/Seconds N 30 03 14 W 085 37 17, which is very close to shore just a little bit to the southeast of Panama City Beach.  This tugboat was originally 93 feet long and lies in a shallow 20 feet of water only ½ mile off the shore of the Old East Pass to St. Andrew Bay.  The wreck is broken apart over a sandy bottom.  You need to take caution to be save and dive during a slack tide, but the attraction to this site by Panama City Beach and Destin Florida scuba divers and snorkelers is easy to see because of the huge variety of marine life living around the Simpson dive site.  This includes huge schools of baitfish as well as the angelfish that feed off of them, along with stingrays, squid, sea turtles, and stone crab.  

Watch out for local anglers who will also point out to you the large population of game fish in the area like cobia, Spanish Mackerel, flounder, king mackerel, grouper, and even mangrove snapper that live in the area.  Locals love this as a snorkeling spot.

Finally there's the Tarpon Dive Site located at Degrees/Minutes/Seconds N 30 05 42 W 085 56 33.  The Tarpon site is over 9 miles southwest of the St. Andrews jetties and all the way down in 90 to 95 feet of water.  This is a slightly different dive site as it's not sandy bottom – it's actually a hard bottom.  Parts of the ship like a section of the stern and bow are intact, and the odd defining feature are the thousands of beer bottles scattered around the site.  This area is protected as Florida's Sixth Underwater Archaeological Preserve, making it illegal to remove anything so leave all those beer bottles alone!

This dive area is also popular with anglers because of the wide number of game fish.  Divers report seeing large schools of amberjack, angelfish, flounder, grouper, remoras, spadefish, moray eels and even spiny lobster at the bottom.

If you're looking to stay closer to shore there are two big options: the Spanish Shanty Barge and the Life Boats Dive Site.  The Spanish Shanty Barge, also referred to by many locals as the "Tar Barge," is in only 20 feet of water in St. Andrews Bay just off the coast of Shell Island.  This is a 150 foot long barge and is on the northwest corner of the island.  Sheepshead, banded tulip and mullet are common sights, and this location is only a stone's throw from the Life Boats Dive Site.

Speaking of which, the Life Boats dive site is located at 20 to 28 feet for Destin Florida and Panama City Beach snorkelers and scuba divers, and consist of several steel-hulled lifeboats salvaged from Liberty Ships that were being scrapped at the Panama City port. These were are cabled to one another and then sunk inside St. Andres Bay to create an artificial reef.  These are just north of Shell Island and the area is famous for its shells and inshore fish found in the area.  This is one of the safest dive spots for true beginners.

At the other extreme you have the Grey Ghost which can be found at Degrees/Minutes/Seconds N 30 02 49 W 086 05 32 and is the furthest wreck from shore.  This 105 foot steel tug boat was sunk near a natural limestone reef.  This is still more of a fishing spot than a dive charter spot, but attracts advanced divers because of the incredible degree of marine life as well as spectacular photographs of the limestone reef.  This is for advanced divers only and all divers must carry a knife with them at all times because of the large amount of monofilament line in the water. The wreck area is home to large snapper, grouper, amberjack, and assorted colorful tropicals.

Other popular Panama City Beach scuba diving spots of note include the Benjamin H. Grierson Liberty Ship, Chickasaw Dive Spot, Commander dive site, Leroy ship wreckage, the USS Chippewa, and the USS Strength.