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.
The snow-white sugar sand of St Andrew’s Park and Shell Island are picture-perfectly beautiful. Dolphin cruises abound, and there are even attractions like Pier Park, Shipwreck Island, and Ripley’s Believe it or Not for land lovers. At night, you’ll find some of the best fresh seafood around (the she-crab soup at Firefly is legit the best we have EVER had!!) and golden sunsets over the turquoise blue water.
Scuba Dive Panama City Beach offers a full service dive center and aquatic training facilities. The instructors are highly experienced and have over 50 years' experience in the diving industry. They can help students learn in their heated pool or on a variety of open-water courses.
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.
Grey Ghost offshore dive is 6-8 hour long. While she's only a mere 105 foot vessel, what makes this dive so spectacular is the wide variety of aquatic species. She landed at the edge a natural reef, which was enhanced with scrap steel and fiberglass boats. This area is an ideal habitat for fish.
With all of these great options, it isn't hard to see why Panama City Beach is the second-most visited dive location in Florida. You too can jump fins-first into the Gulf of Mexico to experience the marine life and treasured underwater landscapes we call home.
Warsaw Reef is the best reef dive. It's a natural cave with concrete rubble, tire bundles and other debris. Fish love it and travel frequently between the hole, nearby wrecks, and the Black Bart.
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.