Three decommissioned vessels are scheduled to sink off Panama City Beach this fall. Final Haul and Final Tow are 100-foot working boats headed for nine and 12 nautical miles out, and the 224-foot Henry Alex is headed for 28 miles out. Visit Panama City Beach has given more than one reason for the project. The one that matters most to anyone who already keeps a boat at Grand Lagoon comes from its Coastal Resources Manager, Erin Graham, who said in the July 28, 2026 announcement that "expanding our reef system will help reduce overcrowding and distribute fishing pressure across a greater number of reefs."
That makes this fall's ships a capacity project. The Black Pearl went down less than a year ago and is already drawing divers. Each new wreck moves the traffic a step deeper and farther from the pass.
The bureau that markets the beach now sinks the ships
For years, Bay County's artificial reef program was run by the University of Florida's IFAS. In July 2025, WJHG reported that county commissioners moved the program to the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau after the previous coordinator resigned. Commissioners said they hoped the new leadership would "blend both the marketing and environmental aspects of artificial reefs."
Both halves of that hope show up in the July announcement. Visit Panama City Beach President and CEO Griff Griffitts described the new ships as "new bucket-list experiences for visitors" and said divers had already come "from around the world to explore the Black Pearl." Graham's comment in the same release pointed at the people already out there and the problem of too many boats on too few sites.
The bureau has been busy since taking over in mid-2025. It reports three new public reef sites so far: the Black Pearl and RESTORE Rubble 9 and 10. It also runs a dedicated Coastal Resources team that monitors how reefs perform over time and uses that data to plan new ones. All of this adds to a network the bureau puts at more than 600 artificial reef sites.
Each new ship sits a step farther out
The newest public reefs sit in the 70-foot range. This fall's ships push into 85, 100 and 120 feet of water.
| Reef | Status | Distance | Depth |
|---|---|---|---|
| RESTORE Rubble 9 & 10 | Deployed March 19, 2026 | Not listed by FWC | 72 ft, with 15 ft of relief |
| Black Pearl | Sunk November 20, 2025 | 6.01 nm southwest of St. Andrews Pass | 75 ft, top of vessel at 54 ft |
| Final Haul | Planned for fall 2026 | About 9 nm offshore | About 85 ft |
| Final Tow | Planned for fall 2026 | About 12 nm from St. Andrews Pass | About 100 ft |
| Henry Alex, to be named Sposit Reef | Planned for fall 2026 | About 28 nm from St. Andrews Pass | About 120 ft |
The Black Pearl is the baseline. It is a 97-foot steel-hulled ship that MyPanhandle reported went down on the morning of Thursday, November 20, 2025, about six nautical miles southwest of the pass. WJHG reported that the site opened to the public the next day for diving and fishing, and that staff planned to track marine growth. In its December 2025 write-up, Visit Panama City Beach describes the site as suitable for Open Water certified divers and says marine life began showing up within days.
Final Haul is the closest of the new ships, at roughly 85 feet and about three miles past the Black Pearl. Final Tow, a triple-deck towboat, adds another three miles and 15 more feet of water. The Henry Alex is in another category altogether. At about 28 nautical miles, it is more than four times the Black Pearl's distance from the pass, and it is more than twice the length of either of this fall's 100-foot boats.
The bureau has said these ships will go down this fall but has not published specific sinking dates. Until a deployment is announced, treat them as destinations still on the calendar.
The farthest ship is a two-county project
The Henry Alex is not purely a Panama City Beach project, and the details of the deal show how far offshore reef building now reaches. In a June 29, 2026 release, Okaloosa County said its commissioners approved an agreement with the Panama City Beach CVB on June 16, 2026. The release laid out the costs:
- $450,000 to buy, prepare and transport the vessel, split evenly between Okaloosa County and the Panama City Beach CVB at $225,000 each
- An additional $60,000 from Coastal Conservation Association Florida to cover towing and deployment
- All funding drawn from tourism development tax revenue and partner contributions
The proposed site is 30° 05.831'N, 86° 17.749'W, in about 120 feet of water. That puts it 22 nautical miles from Destin's East Pass and 28 from the Panama City pass, so the wreck sits closer to Destin than to St. Andrews Pass. CCA chose the name Sposit Reef to honor a member of its national office staff. The partnership itself is not new. Okaloosa County notes that the same group of partners deployed the 239-foot Deep Stim III in 2023.
Okaloosa County Board Chairman Trey Goodwin summed up the reasoning in the county's release: "The marine life that benefits from these artificial reefs does not see borders." The same logic applies to boat traffic. A large wreck halfway between two passes gives captains from both harbors a new place to go.
Getting the numbers into your plotter
A reef only spreads out the crowd if people can find it. The official waypoints are public. Here is where to get them and how to use them.
- Start with the Visit Panama City Beach reef page. The diving and snorkeling page embeds the Bay County Artificial Reef Sites map and offers the 2025 master reef waypoints as GPX, KMZ/KML and Excel files, with separate 2026 coordinate files.
- Load the GPX file. The page says the GPX files are meant for importing into GPS units or waypoint software. Clicking a reef icon on the embedded map pulls up that site's details.
- Cross-check with FWC. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission keeps a statewide reef map with PDF, Excel and GIS downloads. It warns that reef materials can shift, break down or get buried, and that some records are historical or unverified.
- Check back after each sinking. The distances and depths listed above for Final Haul, Final Tow and the Henry Alex, along with the Henry Alex coordinates from Okaloosa County, describe planned locations. Official waypoints will follow each deployment.
Inside the pass, without a boat
Not every reef in the system requires a run offshore. Visit Panama City Beach's September 15, 2026 guide to St. Andrews identifies the jetties at St. Andrews State Park as an artificial reef. The shallow, calm area on the landward side, known as the Kiddie Pool, holds fish, crabs and starfish. The bureau's diving page notes that The Dive Locker offers beachside snorkeling there and that octopus and redfish turn up along the rocks.
For the Black Pearl and the other inshore wrecks, two local operators publish their routes:
- Panama City Diving, at 106 Thomas Drive, lists the Black Pearl among its normal inshore trips, typically within eight miles of the pass, and describes those wrecks as about 75 feet to the sand with most of the dive above 60 feet, according to its dive sites page.
- Diver's Den runs daily charters that usually pair a wreck with an artificial reef, at depths of 45 to 80 feet. Its charter page says its boat docks at 5550 North Lagoon Drive, directly behind Captain Anderson's Restaurant.
Both operators describe inshore dives in the 75-to-80-foot range, about the depth of the Black Pearl and the RESTORE Rubble sites. Final Haul, at about 85 feet, will be the first of this fall's ships just past that depth, and the next to watch for once Visit Panama City Beach announces its sinking date.
If you follow the water as closely as you follow the market, we would be glad to talk about either one. Found Real Estate is based in Panama City Beach, and we keep up with what is changing offshore along with what is changing on land. Contact us anytime.
