Navarre Beach State Park

[Hetland]

Most of the rubble to the West of the pier has been covered in sand. If conditions are favorable, then you can still get a decent dive in, but you'll be luck to find an octopus, a few sheepshead, maybe a redfish or grouper. Mostly, it's just tunicates, anemones, barnacles and blennies.

Of course a decent sized storm, or tropical depression could give us back our great dive spot, but we'll have to wait otherwise.

The good news: If you will be down in May, you might be able to get to Ft. Pickens by car (road scheduled to open in May). Ft. Pickens is probably 20 miles to the West of Navarre, and has a great shore dive. It is tide dependent (dive an incoming tide, as close to slack as possible), but there is a huge variety of critters to see from 20-55ft. Destin has a nice shore dive at the jetties as well, but it's a LOOONNNGGGG walk with your gear, and there are no public terlets and such on site.

Both Pensacola and Destin have great charter communities, and the diving from both can really be awesome. Pensacola has a larger number of wrecks to dive, and of course, they have the world famous Oriskany. Destin has some wrecks, and natural bottom spots to dive too. Destin will usually be cheaper and faster to dive. That's because the water gets deeper closer to shore in Destin than it does in Pensacola. Since the Pensacola boats have to burn more gas to get to the better dive spots, they have to pass the cost on. If it was up to me, I'd dive both Pensacola and Destin. I'd try for some natural bottom sites in Destin, and hit some wrecks in Pensacola.

Finally, Introduce yourself over in the Deep Dixie Divers Forum. That's where many of the hard -core panhandle divers post: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/deep-dixie-divers/

 

[ReefHound]

We need a grass roots campaign for Navarre - every diver bring a concrete masonry block when you dive. One block at a time, let's build a reef.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Hi my name is stormey and i am headed to navarre beach in may of 09 and was wondering what the diving is like and if there are any OLD WREAK to dive and what the closest dive shop is.
thank you
stormey

Supposedly there's one off the beach between P'Cola and Navarre. I've never dived it nor have I talked to anyone who's personally dived it. There's a few off the beaches of Fort Pickens(P'Cola) and atleast 3 divable wrecks(when the sands are shifted) in Gulf Shores off the beaches.

There's one in the surfzone off Santa Rosa Island adjascent to military property, one used to be bayside off the beach by the public swimming area(don't think its there anymore) - it was a sailboat that was a fun way to kill the rest of a tank, dove it a few times, but I think it was salvaged/recovered/whatever.

 

[gatordiver77]

We need a grass roots campaign for Navarre - every diver bring a concrete masonry block when you dive. One block at a time, let's build a reef.

You might want to be careful trying to take blocks out and make a reef. That would be considered fill in waters of the U.S. and would require a federal permit. If you get caught doing this the fine is pretty hefty. Just a friendly warning.