Panama City Beach is home to a wide variety of artificial reef material. Materials include bridge pilings, old-piers, and special designed reef habitat. Although these locations won't attract divers, you can be sure that they will attract fish when there is a sunken ship with reef modules surrounding it.
Our threshold to offshore diving is greater than 8 miles from St Andrew's Pass. These sites require advanced certification. A Nitrox certificate would also be an option due to the depths and open water. These trips aren't available every day because of the distances involved. It's best to check with your dive shop to find out when the next trip is scheduled. If you plan to go with friends who are well qualified, they may be able to schedule one for you.
I love this shop, the boat crew, as well as the dives. We have been using them for years and have always had great time and great dives. You have many options to choose from when renting or buying gear. Everyone is happy to assist!
Spearfishing is essentially bow hunting underwater. It is neither easy to master or cheap to get into and it’s more addictive than crack. If you want to get clean, ethical and non-industrial protein that doesn’t have any hormones, pesticides, or antibiotics and you don’t mind wearing life support equipment to “go shopping” – this might be for you. We offer charters for very experienced divers that want to spearfish as well as closely supervised Introduction to Spearfishing classes where we teach you the basics and guide you on a spearfishing dive.
There is quite an extensive collection of artificial reef material deployed around Panama City Beach. Materials range from bridge pilings to old piers to specially designed reef habitat. Most of these sites wouldn’t attract divers on their own, but when you see a sunken ship surrounded by reef modules, you can bet there will be lots of fish down there.
Sport Diver's summer trip was so successful that a journalist wrote an article about us and the amazing diving off Panama City Beach.
A Navy minesweeper tender weighing 184 feet and with a 33-foot beam, it was built in 1987 for use as a training ground for divers. Storms damaged the bow and it was thrown off to the port side. Rest of the boat was intact and can be seen standing upright, 20' above the ground.
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.