The Steel Slinger and Narcosis are both custom built 36′ Newton Dive Special. We limit them to 12 and 14 passengers but they were USCG rated for 20. We want you to have room and not feel like a sardine. All charters have a Divemaster or Instructor to help you plan your dive and setup our line system to the wreck and orient the divers to the site. Divers are then free to conduct their own dives within recreational limits in buddy pairs. We run a Carolina style line system from the boats to the wrecks, so descents and ascents and safety stops are slow and controlled, with a line every bit of the way.
The Steel Slinger is is owned and primariliy captained by Captain Josh and Pat Green, two divers that feel more at home on the water than in the offices of their past lives. Pat and his brother James own both boats also own Panama City Diving, the dive shop that fills all of the tanks and supplies rental gear to customers on the boat.
The regular crew members are Captain Travis Nye and Ben Carpenter, John Henry and Captain Chris Maday.
Weather
We are a Florida Diving company, which means we are very familiar with how the local weather impacts our dives. We will cancel if we believe that sea state is too high or there is likely to be thunderstorms we can’t avoid. However, we reserve to right to make that call, please don’t look at the weather forecast a week in advance, notice a cloud with a lightning bolt and call us to cancel. It literally has that icon every single day here in the Summertime because somewhere there will be a thunderstorm in the area. The captain of your dive charter has no desire to be struck by lightening either.
That is life in Florida in the Summertime. Usually these storms are North of Panama City Beach inland as a result of convection driven cloud formation as the land heats up faster than the water. Usually the beach and offshore waters are unaffected. We are far more worried about how fast and what direction the wind is blowing most of the time. In our experience the wind forecasts are generally accurate about 72 hours away from the forecast time but much less so before that.
When we cancel due to weather we issue full and immediate refunds to the credit card you reserved your trip with.