Panama City Beach museum celebrating special anniversary

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. ( WMBB ) – The Man in the Sea Museum in Panama City Beach is hosting a special anniversary celebration on Saturday, July 20th for its most popular and recognizable attraction.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., residents are invited to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the SEALAB program which began right here in Bay County.

The program was designed to see if humans could work and live at the bottom of the ocean for a long period of time.

Saturday’s event is free and there will be activities for the kids, food trucks, and even some guest speakers.

Most importantly, however, aquanauts from the actual SEALAB missions will be in attendance and the original SEALAB I will be open for people to explore.

“To have it open and people can walk inside of it, to have the aquanauts come out here and be proud that it’s still around, and showing off the capabilities that we had and to just keep this story alive,” said Man in the Sea Museum Executive Director Steve Mulholland. “It’s just such a great story of the U.S. Navy and it’s such a great story of Bay County.”

Man in the Sea Museum staff are asking attendees to plan on parking at the Panama City Beach Visitors Center.

There will be shuttles going back and forth every few minutes to bring people to and from the museum.

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