Black Bart
Conditions & tides
Scored by DiveConnect's site-physics model
Marine forecast via Copernicus Marine. Score is a rule-based guide from swell/wind vs. the site's exposure — always dive your own assessment.
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About this site
The Black Bart is a wreck off Panama City Beach, Florida, a 180-foot (55 m) vessel sunk in 1993 as an artificial reef. She was christened Vulcano del Golfo in 1977 and is an oil rig supply ship. The site commemorates Charles 'Black Bart' Bartholomew, a Navy Supervisor of Salvage captain who died while diving off Panama City Beach in 1990, and who led the recovery of the Space Shuttle Challenger and the Navy's Exxon Valdez cleanup. She lies in 79 feet (24 m).
The structure makes the wreck. At 40 feet (12 m) down you can look into the wheelhouse, and the deck is at 66 feet (20 m) with entrances into the cargo holds. The ship's head (toilet) sits outside the wreck on the sand, topped with a skull. Sea life comes over from the nearby Warsaw Reef. The wreck is close to the USS Strength, a 184-foot (56 m) Navy minesweeper tender sunk in 1987, and to a sunken Navy hovercraft.
Marine life here
Confirmed by our research team, reported by independent divers, or observed nearby via iNaturalist — each entry is labelled with its source.
Loggerhead Sea TurtleCaretta carettaReported here · unconfirmed
Common Bottlenose DolphinTursiops truncatusReported here · unconfirmed
Kemp's Ridley Sea TurtleLepidochelys kempiiReported here · unconfirmed
TomtateHaemulon aurolineatumReported here · unconfirmed
Durable tips from divers — access, hazards, marine life, facilities. For day-of conditions, use the report tool in the conditions card above.
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