New wreck in Panama City? Infinity Blu Reef

Infinity Blu Reef
If you are tired of diving the same wrecks when you come to Panama City Beach, then I have some good news; plans are to sink the 125-foot tugboat Red Sea, late 2007, for a new diving and fishing location. The tug was built in 1970. It is 125 feet long and 32 feet wide. If it lands on the bottom upright in 75 feet of water, the topmost portion should be about 45 feet down​

Red Sea, Blu Reef: Historic Label Also OK'D for 1929 Shipwreck
By David Angier, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.


Aug. 9--The Red Sea tugboat is awaiting final clearance to become Bay County's newest artificial reef.

Infinity Blu Development Group loaned a local group the final $30,000 on Wednesday to clean and sink the 125-foot tugboat Red Sea. The new site will be called the Infinity Blu reef, said Mike Gomez, who spearheaded the project.

Gomez said the tug is ready for the Department of Environmental Protection's final clearance, and once the tug passes inspection, his group will move quickly to sink the boat about five miles off shore in the same one-square-mile area where the Strength now rests.

Gomez said the Strength is wasting away and the new ship will supplant it. The group has requested a renourishment permit to sink the Red Sea on the approved plot.

Infinity Blu's interest-free loan will be paid back by a $1 or $2 fee on divers using commercial boats, Gomez said. The fee would apply to all commercial dive trips, even if the dive boat doesn't go to the new reef.

The tug will be scuttled in 70 feet of water. The top-most portion of the wreck will sit 40 to 50 feet below the surface.

This will be the second artificial reef sunk this year. Panama City Marine Institute sank a boat in June about 12 miles from shore.

Gomez said the tug will be a perfect site for divers because of its availability.

Another area tugboat soon might make history.

Bay County spokeswoman Valerie Lovett on Wednesday said the County Commission directed staff members on Tuesday night to begin the process of having the tugboat EE Simpson declared an underwater archaeological preserve.

The Simpson, which was built in 1877, sank in 1929 while trying to assist another vessel.

If approved, the Simpson would join the Vamar and Tarpon as the three archaeological shipwrecks in Bay County waters.​

The family of Richard “Mac” McCullen was on board Panama City dive Center’s dive boat pulling the old Navy work barge (Navy 2154) out to its final resting place. Panama City Dive Center divers along with divers from (PCMI) Panama City Marine Institute sunk the boat June 29, 2007 in 97ft of water about 10.5 miles offshore. The wreck will be used as an artificial reef named “Mac’s Reef” for fishing and diving. “Divers gotta be tough” was McCullen’s motto, and four years after his death, friends and family accompanied the tough old boat out into the gulf to be sunk.​

Keys boat getting sunk

Former tug to be used as dive site

A Bay County (Panama City) Tourist Development Council committee voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend the full board approve $40,000 for an artificial reef to benefit sport divers and fishermen.

The TDC's marketing committee voiced strong support for the effort by Danny Grizzard, director of Florida Aquatic and Marine Inc., to sink the decommissioned tug Red Sea at a planned site about 5 miles off St. Andrew Bay pass in 75 feet of water.

Built in 1970, the tug is 125 feet long and 32 feet wide. It currently is moored at the Panama City Marina after being towed to the area from its former home in Key West.

Mike Gomez, co-owner of the Panama City Dive and Ski Center, told the committee the Panama City Beach area formerly was known as the best sport diving area in Florida but has lost visitors and trade to areas such as Pensacola in recent years. Divers often complain of being tired of seeing the same wrecks, he said.

“We can recapture the crowd that we once had if we work together,” Gomez said.

Marketing committee members said they strongly agreed.

Grizzard provided a 1998 economic study that showed sport diving pumped $150 million each year into the county economy.

“This is a one-time expense that has a long-term benefit,” committee member Bill Spann said. “There is no way you can overstate the value of this.”

Recalling his years as operator of Bay Point Marina, Spann said, “The most common question we would get [from visiting boaters] was, ‘Where are the wrecks?'”

Grizzard said it will cost about $70,000 to prepare and sink the tug once final permits are approved by the state Department of Environmental Protection and Bay County.

Infinity Blu Development Group in August provided a $30,000 interest-free loan to the local group toward expenses in exchange for renaming the vessel the Infinity Blu. The group needs to carry out the sinking by mid-December, Grizzard said.

Escambia County won the right to acquire and sink the decommissioned aircraft carrier USS Oriskany last year. The hulk has become a major tourist attraction and prompted a major infusion of tourism revenues to the county, Grizzard said. The county's $1 million investment already has been repaid in additional revenues, he added.

He also cited the 510-foot Spiegel Grove, a former military ship sunk off Key Largo in May 2002. It has sparked between $10 million and $14 million in annual tourist revenues, Grizzard said.

The Key Largo Chamber of Commerce couldn't confirm that number.

The Keys TDC contributed $868,000 toward the Spiegel Grove scuttling, Key Largo Chamber of Commerce President Jackie Harder said..

Efforts are under way in Key West to sink the 520-foot former military vessel USS Vandenberg 7 miles off Key West. Cost to scuttle the ship, now being cleaned in a Virginia shipyard, is estimated at around $6 million.

The Keys TDC has pledged $1 million toward the Vandenberg but has also rejected a request for $2 million more, citing the need for TDC expenditures in other areas of the Keys and on attractions other than diving.​