Panama City Beach's Next Wrecks Are Going Farther Out, and the Biggest Sits Closer to Destin

"As fishing and diving activity in our area grows, expanding our reef system will help reduce overcrowding and distribute fishing pressure across a greater number of reefs." Erin Graham, Coastal Resources Manager for Visit Panama City Beach, said that in July, when the bureau announced its fall reef projects.

"Distribute" is the key word in that quote. The two most recent additions to Bay County's public reef system went down within a short run of St. Andrews Pass, almost on top of each other. The three vessels planned for this fall are spread across a much wider stretch of the Gulf, each one deeper than the last. The biggest of them, the 224-foot Henry Alex, is set for a spot that is a shorter run from Destin's East Pass than from Panama City's.

What went down most recently, and how close together it sits

The Black Pearl, a 97-foot steel-hulled vessel with a pirate theme, was sunk on November 20, 2025, and opened to public diving and fishing the next day. Visit Panama City Beach puts it 6.01 nautical miles southwest of St. Andrews Pass in 75 feet of water, with the top of the structure 54 feet below the surface. That depth puts it within reach of Open Water certified divers. Students from Haney Technical College welded the cannons, treasure chest, plank and flag that decorate the wreck, and the bureau reported marine life showing up within days.

Four months later, on March 19, 2026, RESTORE Rubble 9 & 10 went in. The project placed 159 tons of secondary-use concrete with 15 feet of relief in 72 feet of water, according to the deployment register in the July 2026 FWC saltwater regulations guide. The same register lists the Black Pearl at 30° 06.345' N, 85° 49.910' W and the rubble at 30° 06.466' N, 85° 49.979' W. The two sites are a little over a tenth of a nautical mile apart, so the newest public reef structure in Bay County sits right next to the newest wreck.

The two projects make one destination. A boat headed for the Black Pearl can work the rubble on the same stop. Visit Panama City Beach says that since taking over Bay County's artificial reef program in June 2025, it has completed three new public reef sites: the Black Pearl and the two RESTORE Rubble sites. All three are on that one patch of bottom about six miles out.

The fall plan, laid out by distance

The fall projects break that cluster up. Here is how the newest sites and the planned ones compare, using figures from Visit Panama City Beach's July 28 announcement and the FWC register.

Each planned site is farther out and deeper than the one before it. Final Haul would add about three nautical miles to a Black Pearl run and about 10 feet of depth. Final Tow goes past that. The Henry Alex is in a different category, more than four times the Black Pearl's distance from the pass and about 45 feet deeper.

As of early October, the public announcements still describe all three as fall projects, and none gives a sink date. Treat the distances and depths above as planned figures until the official waypoint files list the sites.

Why the biggest wreck is closer to Destin

The Henry Alex is a joint project. On June 16, the Okaloosa County Board of County Commissioners approved an agreement with the Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau to sink the vessel. Purchasing, preparing and transporting it costs $450,000, split equally at $225,000 each. Coastal Conservation Association Florida is adding $60,000 for towing and deployment.

A shared site ends up between the two counties. The proposed location is 30° 05.831' N, 86° 17.749' W in about 120 feet of water, which the Okaloosa County Public Information Office described as 22 nautical miles from Destin's East Pass and 28 nautical miles from the Panama City Pass. Compare that longitude with the Black Pearl's 85° 49.910' W and the Henry Alex lands well west, toward the Okaloosa side of the line.

"The marine life that benefits from these artificial reefs does not see borders," Okaloosa County Board Chairman Trey Goodwin said in the county's release. In practice, that means a Panama City Beach boat headed to the Henry Alex has the longer run of the two passes, and it will be sharing the site with boats from Destin.

The site will officially be called the Sposit Reef. CCA chose the name in memory of Rebecca Sposit, who served as human resources director at CCA's national office. "Rebecca Sposit did so much for marine conservation through her role at CCA, in ways the public could never see," said Pat Murray, CCA's national president and CEO. Expect to see "Sposit" on waypoint lists and charter boards rather than "Henry Alex."

What the added depth means for a dive trip

Depth sorts divers by certification. Panama City Diving, which runs the 36-foot Newton dive boats Steel Slinger and Narcosis from its shop at 106 Thomas Drive, publishes two main trip types. Its standard charters visit the shallower wrecks and bridge spans at 55 to 75 feet, a list that includes the Red Sea Tug, the USS Strength, the Black Bart, the Black Pearl and the Hovercraft. Its offshore trips go to deeper wrecks at 75 to 110 feet and require Advanced, Adventure or Deep certification.

Measured against those published ranges, Final Haul at about 85 feet and Final Tow at about 100 feet would fall in the offshore tier. The Henry Alex at about 120 feet would sit below the bottom of that operator's published offshore range. Close-in structure like the Black Pearl, with its top at 54 feet, remains the reef program's open-water entry point.

Other Panama City Beach operators run general reef trips without promising a specific site. Diver's Den offers daily two-tank inshore trips that visit a wreck and an artificial reef at 45 to 80 feet, along with custom trips where divers pick the sites. On the fishing side, Kelley Girl Charters runs bottom-fishing trips on local reefs with a six-hour minimum. If you want one of the new wrecks in particular, ask the operator directly once the sites are down.

Getting the waypoints when they post

Visit Panama City Beach keeps the official Bay County public reef map on its fishing charters page. You can click any reef icon on the map for details, and the page offers downloadable waypoint files. The page sorts them into two groups:

1. New users import the 2025 master Bay public reefs file, offered as GPX, KMZ or spreadsheet, straight into a GPS or waypoint software.
2. Existing users who already loaded the 2025 master file add the update file for each year since. A separate 2026 file covers reefs built or enhanced this year.

That 2026 update file is where the fall wrecks should show up once they are down. Several of the download links point to files whose names don't match their labels, so go to the page itself and check the dates before importing.

For a second reference, FWC runs a statewide artificial reef locator with an interactive map, PDF and Excel lists, and GIS and KML files. FWC notes that some records may be historical or inaccurate, and that reef materials can move, degrade or get buried. For the Henry Alex, the coordinates published in July are labeled as the proposed site, so wait for the official post-deployment numbers before you mark it.

The rest of the reef network

The fall projects add to what Visit Panama City Beach describes as a network of more than 600 artificial reef sites. A smaller count shows up elsewhere: when the Black Pearl went down, the bureau said it joined more than 50 existing dive sites, including the Black Bart and El Dorado wrecks, tugboats, trawlers, bridge spans and military tanks. The 600-plus figure covers the whole public reef program, and the 50-plus figure covers the sites marketed for diving.

The bureau's Coastal Resources team handles construction and long-term monitoring for these sites, collecting ecological and structural data to judge how each reef performs and to guide where the next ones go. No published survey has yet described what has settled on Rubble 9 & 10 since March. A February 2026 Visit Panama City Beach dive feature reported groupers, snapper and colorful reef fish on the Black Pearl.

For anyone already fishing or diving out of St. Andrews Pass, the fall plan adds Final Haul at about 9 miles, Final Tow at about 12 and the Sposit Reef at about 28, where the trip from Destin's East Pass is six nautical miles shorter.

If your plans include a slip or a home within easy reach of St. Andrews Pass, the team at Abbott Martin Group grew up on these waters and can help you weigh which spots along the coast put the pass, and these new reefs, closest to your dock. Call us to talk it through and Discover Your Emerald Coast Home.