Night Diving - love or hate?

[DeputyDan]

Can take or leave them.

Enjoy a night dive at a place like Bonaire
Don't care as much for them at a place with a ripping current.

 

[Lorenzoid]

My first night dive was part of the AOW class. I was part of a group of two or three other students. At the dive site, there was not only our group in the water but one or two other groups. Lights flashing everywhere. Terribly disorienting. At one point I got mixed up with another group. I didn't see anything in the manner of marine life because I was so fixated on not getting lost. I couldn't wait for the dive to be over. For some time after that, I shunned night dives. Gradually, I warmed to them. These days, my buddy and I have acquired the training and experience to feel like confident divers, and we really don't get too panicked if we lose the rest of the group--we can surface on our own and know how to deploy (and illuminate) our SMBs. I love night dives now.

 

[Mudd]

I really enjoy night dives - different critters are out and about and it really does make a known site seem different.

It can be a bit spooky though... and can mean a late night clean-up... but I think it's well worth it once you're comfortable.

 

[TSandM]

At first, night diving terrified me . . . without the gradient of light in the water, I had no reference for up and down, and I would get horribly disoriented. My beloved dive buddy would not let me get away with that, though, and lured me back into the dark water.

Nine years later, night dives are among my favorite dives. Which is good, because Puget Sound winter diving is all night diving (unless you can find a buddy who can dive at noon, and it's often dark then, too). And summer dives are low viz dives, until you get below the Schmitz, in which case you are -- night diving!

 

[Goodtime Adventures]

Night diving used to be my favourite thing to do - and then I discovered UV/Flouro night diving. I still love regular night dives but taking out the UV gear is definitely my new favourite passtime. There are some awesome glowing fish and corals around and you get to see them in a whole new light (no pun intended!). I could (and do) easily spend whole dives just watching mushroom coral feeding. Awesome!

 

[KeithG]

whenever possible, every dive day includes a night dive. there is a whole different set of critters about.

things like basket stars fully extended at the edge of the wall, banded tube worms on a sandy bottom, orange ball corallamorph,... things you will never see in the light. And then there are the night hunters you rarely see during the day: octopus, crabs, lobsters, eels and those annoying tarpon.

and coral polyps come out as well.

 

[tomfcrist]

I love night diving for one of the reasons that quite a few people I know hate it...It is disorienting, thus it can be challenging, thus I love it. I could really care less about the change in fish activity, or even how much vis there is. To me, the worse the dive conditions are...the more fun I have. Is that twisted?

 

[Searcaigh]

I used to do a lot of night diving, one year it was one third of 150 dives I did on that particular year.

Lots of different critters from daytime, and more focus to find small things as there is no distraction outside of your beam of light.

 

[Damselfish]

I love night diving, but I don't go as often as I'd like or intend to. Early in the day it always sounds like a great idea, by dinner sometimes not so much. Works better if I can go before dinner - once I'm dry and fed, a warm bed starts to look very appealing.

 

[NAM001]

I like diving nights. There is so little one sees in the day light. From my first saltwater exposure in the flower gardens i was hooked. Had my first run in with a shark on a night dive. A nurse shark but a shark non the less.