Shorebased Diving
There are several spots that a diver can walk into from land in the Panama City area, primarily area Springs. Florida's geology as gifted several parts of the state with numerous freshwater springs where gin clear water comes from limestone caverns and joins local streams and rivers. While some of the springs are in private hands and not readily accessible to divers several are. The two most popular are Vortex springs (private) and Morrison Springs (park).

These springs are perfect places for divers to take open water classes in pool like conditions and bone up on dive skills if they have been out of the water awhile. Depths are very shallow around the spring but slowly run deeper as you approach the mouth of the caverns. There are also wooden platforms at the springs which make them great for class practice sessions. Obviously only trained cavern and cave divers should attempt to dive inside the caverns and deeper into the caves. There are quite a few other Springs in the area for the more intrepid diver where arrowheads and spearpoints and pottery are commonly found. Econfina, Cypress, Pitt and Gainer springs just to name a few.

There is also one shore dive available to check out the marine life in the Gulf of Mexico. The Saint Andrews State Park in the East end of Panama City's Beaches has a long set of rock jetties. The jetties are best dove on a peak high tide as the incoming Gulf water is clearer than the Bay Water and the time between rising and falling tides is key due to possible strong currents from the incoming/outgoing water. Many species of snapper, grouper (including goliath), spade fish, angel fish, flounder, red  fish and baitfish are commonly seen. Depths are less than 10' on the kiddie pool side and slope as deep as 60' once you cross over the rocks. Dive flags are the law and for your own safety as many boaters travel through the pass. There is also a convenience store in the park. It used to offer basic dive services but no longer does so come prepared!

Most operators classify sites as inshore or offshore. Fishing boats and individuals will have different concepts of what this mean, and there is alot of confusion when divers start talking about this too. In the Dive charter mindset of PCB this is really just a measure of how far the site is from the pass not from the shoreline. Since  big dive boats typically get about 1mpg  operators needed a way to classify sites to charge more for trips that burned more fuel and time. Consequently you could be charged for an offshore trip to dive a reef ledge and span 5 and only be 4 miles from shore but 11 miles from the pass.
Additionally, even though some sites are in the same bracket they aren't particularly close to one another. Given fuel prices today most charters Captains are under orders to keep all the running around to a minimum. Below is a general association of the different popular sites based on proximity to the pass and each other.

We Maintain a copy of Public Dive Sites ready for Download to a Garmin GPS at the shop.

These are Captain Pat's file of Public numbers and they are correct. If you've ever spent half your day looking for a site that isn't where it is supposed to be you know how valuable having the correct numbers can be! Feel free to come by the shop with your GPS, flash drive, or memory card and we'll be happy to give you a copy.

If you intend to take your own vessel out fishing or diving, please remember that these are public numbers, intended for public use. Vessels are expected to share the sites and anchor in such a way to allow at least 1 other vessel access to the site. Charter Dive boats will have their VHF radios on CH 16 and CH 79 and should be contacted before being approached or approached very slowly to ensure the safety of their divers. In fact Florida law requires that any vessel either give 100 yards of clearance to another vessel flying a divers down flag or approach very slowly (ideally scanning the water for divers all the while).


 The following is from Chapter 27 of the 2003 Florida Statutes:
Any person operating a vessel on waters other than a river, inlet, or navigation channel must make a reasonable effort to maintain a distance of at least 300 feet from any divers-down flag.
Any vessel other than a law enforcement or rescue vessel that approaches within 100 feet of a divers-down flag on a river, inlet, or navigation channel, or within 300 feet of a divers-down flag on waters other than a river, inlet, or navigation channel, must proceed no faster than is necessary to maintain headway and steerageway.