In March of 2026, I spent three weeks living in Panama, diving as much as I could on both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts.

In this article, I’ll share everything I know about scuba diving in Panama including dive sites, charter recommendations, towns, and more, so you can better plan your dives here.

The Differences Between Diving Caribbean & Pacific

Located in Central America and bordering Colombia to its South and Costa Rica to its North, Panama provides a lot of scuba diving variety.

Considering Panama is bi-coastal, you’re going to have very different experiences diving each ocean. 

If I had to summarize Caribbean and Pacific diving it would be:

Pacific: Colder waters, more current, lowered visibility, pelagics, unpredictability, volcanic rocky reefs

Carribean: warm waters, little to no current, improved visibility, colorful, beautiful reef fish and nurse sharks, sandy bottoms, and invasive lionfish.

Now I know which one I prefer, but maybe this is different for you. You can also somewhat easily dive both sides of Panama in one trip (requires some planning).

Coiba National Park

In my opinion, Coiba is the top scuba diving destination in Panama.

I did a three day diving trip leaving from Santa Catalina with Coiba Dive Center, and it was one of the best dive trips of my life.

Located on the Pacific coast of Panama, Coiba is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Some of my favorite dive sites here were Wahoo Rock, Santa Cruz, and Montana Russo.

Coiba National Park trips leave from Santa Catalina, and it takes around 1.5 hours via a boat ride to get to National Park dive sites.

To maximize the amount of diving I could do, I did an overnight trip nearby the National Park on an island called Bahia Honda. You can contact Coiba dive center for availability regarding this, I highly reccomend it!

How to Get There: Shuttles, private charter flight, hiring a driver, or renting a car. I rented a car and it was a six hour drive from Panama City.

Recommended Dive Charter: Coiba Dive Center

Panama Coast: Pacific

Portobelo Panama

The best diving on the Caribbean side is going to be Portobelo, Panama.

I went diving here with Rey Sanchez from Golden Frog scuba and had a blast hunting invasive Lionfish.

I will say that in the previous weeks before I went diving here, the Caribbean side of Panama was blasted by winds and storms causing the visibility to be very poor. If you came diving here now I think you’d have a much different experience.

How to Get There: Drive or hire a taxi from Panama City.

Recommended Dive Charter: Golden Frog Scuba

Panama Coast: Caribbean

Bocas Del Toro

I did not go diving here, so I can only go off of what I’ve heard from locals as well as diving discussion online.

In terms of diver foot traffic, Bocas Del Toro is likely Panama's number two dive destination. Maybe even number one, due to the backpacker crowd that it draws.

After speaking with locals and those in the Panama diving industry, from a pure diving perspective, the Caribbean diving experience is not as good as Portobello. One thing Bocas Del Toro has going for it are the numberous shipwreck dives.

There's many other reasons to vacation in Bocas Del Toro over Portobelo, but if it's diving quality you're after, go to Portobelo.

If you've dove Bocas Del Toro before, be sure to let me know inside my diver community.

How to Get There: By plane, or overnight bus (10+ hrs)

Recommended Dive Charter: La Buga Dive Center (Most reviews, but I have never been with them)

Panama Coast: Caribbean

Pearl Islands

Similarly to Bocas Del Toro, I did not go diving at the Pearl Islands.

It's very tricky to get to, weather condition dependant, and from what I've heard, not as great as Coiba.

I would love to dive it on my next Panama visit, but I can only go off of what I’ve heard from locals as well as diving discussions online.

Another pacific destination, I'd expect the conditions here to be very similar to Coiba.

Expect 25ft-45ft visibility, cold water, and strong currents.

On Diving Contadora's website, he has written:
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"Get ready to swim alongside colorful fish like angelfish, butterflyfish, parrotfish, pufferfish, trumpetfish, Moorish idols, sergeant majors, groupers, rainbowfish… and so many more!You’ll also have the chance to spot turtles, rays, lobsters, starfish, eels, oysters, and even reef sharks like the whitetip and brown sharks."

Sounds very similar to what I saw in Coiba!

How to Get There: 1.5-2hr Ferry or Charter Flight

Recommended Dive Charter: Diving Contadora

Panama Coast: Pacific

Gatun Lake

Now if you read some blog articles online or watch some YouTube videos about scuba diving Panama, you’ll notice Gatun lake brought up often as a popular, high altitude freshwater diving experience in Panama. 

This couldn’t be further from the truth, and is the result of bloggers and AI slop copying each other without actually ever visiting the places they write about.

I will leave the identity of the person off the blog post for privacy reasons, but here’s some conversation with a very respected figure in the Panama diving community.

So it seems that the dive is technically possible, but I’m not sure getting a permit nor diving with crocodiles is something people are regularly doing.

If you've dove the site let me know!