Beach Diving from St. Andrew's Park (Panama City Beach)

[ShallowDiverDave]

Is anybody familiar with this dive? I'm a beginner and wish to dive this bay when I get a chance. However, I'm not exactly sure how to swim to certain areas of the bay from the park. For example, it looks like the park is on one side of the bay and 2 dive spots (Spanish Shanty barge and Live Boats) are on the other side. It also appears that there is a channel to the ocean in between for boats. What is the sequence of your dive to these locations?Thanks a bunch!

 

[Panama City Dive Ctr]

Better & safer than the barge or lifeboats is the channel jetties @ the park. You should plan to make that dive @ hi tide as the current is slack for about 45 min. Before picking a date to come call us @ PCDC & we can tellyou the dates when the hi tide will be during park hrs, & let you also know the strenght of the current as it will be different on a daily basis depending on the moon phase

 

[KansaiKitsune]

I did part of my certification there -- current can be pretty rough if you catch it on the wrong day. It has the potential to rip through those rocks like there's no tomorrow, and it can and will dash things on the rocks. Some of the rocks are covered with sea urchins. The best way to do Spanish Shanty and the Lifeboats is to take a boat to Shell Island and go from there: it's on the opposite side of the channel, and you do NOT want to swim all the way across the channel. Current would be pushing you out to sea, not to mention a number of heavy shipping vessels make their way through, to say nothing of the constant stream of boats zipping overhead. Not exactly safe if you need to surface.