Which do you prefer? night diving or daytime dives and why?

[ScubaSteve]

I am sure a lot of people will say something along these lines but I prefer "Diving". I love both day and night dives as well as dawn and dusk dives. Every dive where I surface (a good dive in most books), I feel a sense of exhiliration and awe. No matter what I saw or did not see. It can be a shallow, 50 degree with 2 foot viz dive or an 80', 80 degree 80 foot viz dive....I surface just inspired and exhilirated. One thing I can say about night dives is that you tend to get a different variety of wildlife to look at versus daytime dives. As long as I surface healthy, it is a GREAT dive no matter what.

 

[Rhone Man]

I take night dives, every time, for several reasons:

- Dive sites around here are less crowded at night
- I can do night dives during the week, but can only really do day dives at weekends (and even then I get chewed out by my wife for not spending enough time with the kids)
- Colours are better with dive lights
- If you are hunting, it is a lot easier to get lobster.
- In a sense it is a bit like watching a horror film - you get a bit more excitement out of doing it in the dark rather than the middle of an afternoon.

Night dive tonight on the Rhone with Sail Caribbean Divers if anyone in the BVI is interested...

 

[visibilityunlimited]

Day diving here could oftentimes be considered night diving.
In the Caribbean, however, with clear blue water day diving can sometimes be a sensory overload. Night diving gets you to focus on a tighter area and you tend to see and take in more of what is going on in specific areas. Night diving is my favorite.

 

[Rhone Man]

- Dive sites around here are less crowded at night

....

Night dive tonight on the Rhone with Sail Caribbean Divers if anyone in the BVI is interested...

Next time I'll keep my big mouth shut - we had another boatfull of divers on the site.

 

[Randy43068]

I like both night and day dives. Both have their place.

 

[kathydee]

Down here, sometimes the ocean has a phosphorus quality (supposedly from a micro-organism) When you run your hand through the water it leaves a green-glowing/sparkly trail behind for a brief moment. My first night dive was during a full moon, crystal clear water with this effect going on.
Even at 50 feet you could easily see the outline of the wreck light up as the current washed over it. We turned out our lights, stretched out our arms and it looked like that scene in Peter Pan when the kids are flying over London with magic dust streaming off behind them.
It was one of the best dives ever.

Beautiful description. This sounds like my first night dive in Bali Indonesia - which was also one of my favorites! Warm water, light from a full moon, an eerie wreck, phosphorescents leaving trails - it was particularly beautiful about 20 ft below the surface! We followed a huge grouper cruising around the wreck and watched it fold a large parrot fish (over twice the size of it's mouth) in half, gulping it down and deffinately got the eerie lower than normal on food chain feeling.

I still love the adventure of night diving. So much new to see. Last summer I watched "blooming" coral feed. Quite amazing! I also love the cuttle fish and octupus.

I deffinately seek out day diving with all it's beauty and visibility, but rarely pass up a night dive because I love the adventure of dipping into dark and often peaceful night water, even if I do use a bit more air with lurking Jaws and all (we actually saw a cruising shark on the last night dive) ;-).

 

[Katelubinski]

I prefer daytime dives

 

[Saniflush]

Whichever one is available to me at that exact moment.

 

[BDSC]

A thread revived after 9 years! Might be a record.

I have always preferred day dives mainly because you can see more of what is going on around you without having to point a light in a certain direction. Just a better "big picture" view.

 

[mcohen1021]

I used to love night dives. Not so much anymore. If it was a night shore dive, I would probably like it better because boat night diving usually ends up being a clusterf... Plus, maybe its just me, but has the amount of sea lice on night dives increased, they are so freaking annoying...

(IDK if thats what they're called, but hopefully someone knows the real name)