5 Reasons You Should Take A Night Diver Course

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Dive Right In Scuba 2

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Are you considering adding some training to your dive experience? If you’re like most divers, you surely are. With that in mind, what courses should you take? Certainly, a course like nitrox, navigation, and rescue diver are always good ones to pursue. However, there is one course that is overlooked by most divers that provide a wealth of great information and experience for just about any diver out there. That one course is Night Diver and here are five convincing reasons that you should seriously consider taking it.



Extend Your Dive Day
While a large percentage of diving happens during daylight hours, you cannot discount adding a few extra hours to your dive day. Does your local dive spot offer camping? Grab a quick dive after dinner and before time around the campfire! On a tropical vacation? Some of the most captivating diving in the tropics can be found after dark. By taking a Night Diver course, you can have the training and confidence to venture underwater by the light of the moon!



See Cool Stuff

If you’ve never explored underwater while the world sleeps, you are certainly missing out! After dark, different species of marine life come out to play. In the ocean, you can see luminescent invertebrates, as well as nocturnal hunters and prey. In freshwater, the larger catfish and largemouth bass come out to hunt and play, oftentimes using the diver’s light to guide their movements.



Learn Proper Use of Lights and Signaling Devices

In your basic open water SCUBA course, you learned hand signals and how to visually communicate with your buddy and other divers. Do you know how these signals translate in the dark? In a well taught Night Diver course, you will learn how to communicate using a dive light as well as how to use other illumination and signaling devices to have a fun and safe dive.



Increase Your Buddy Skills

Night diving adds another concern to diving, less ambient light and visibility. This requires increased dive planning and diligence on the part of the entire dive team. A Night Diver course stresses these skills not only in theory but also in practice during the actual night dives that you will complete under the watchful eye of your experienced instructor.



Gain Experience

As a diver, it is important to regularly gain experience in varied dive conditions and environments. A Night Diver course is a great avenue of gaining experience while under the supervision of an experienced SCUBA instructor. In addition to the above mentioned “hard skills” you will learn in a Night Diver course, you will also gain confidence and comfort in your own personal diving abilities, and that is key to a safe and successful pursuit of diving.



As you can see, taking a Night Diver course is not one simply for “card collecting” but a valuable use of time and logged dives. You will gain skills, experience, and confidence while having a great time exploring your favorite dive site in a whole new way. Are you ready? Give us a shout, we regularly offer the Night Diver course and would love to show you what the underwater world looks like after the sun goes down.
 
I went on a night dive with a group of ten divers all carrying multiple huge lights and we lit up the ocean bright as flood lights. We did get great bioluminescence when we got to the surface and turned off all but one guide light for the boat.
 
This is 4 reasons why you should night dive. And I agree. I love night dives.

Please convince me that "we" need to take a course? Learning to turn on and signal with a dive light takes about 2 minutes, unless you are slow. Then it takes all of 5 minutes.

I believe everyone should night dive. I would trade a day dive for a night dive anytime. I am not sure anyone needs more than a few minutes of instruction. I do not believe this requires a course.

Every LOB trip we do, they provide free night diving training. It takes 2 minutes...except for the slow people...
 
I've taken the night course and done several night dives, and while I'm not incapable it's not my preference. I like visibility in areas other than where my light points. Also the human doesn't have great night vision and there are predators that can see you that you can't see and I'm not entirely comfortable when I'm not aware of what's around me. Call me paranoid but I've gotten spoiled living in Florida. :D
 
I've taken the night course and done several night dives, and while I'm not incapable it's not my preference. I like visibility in areas other than where my light points. Also the human doesn't have great night vision and there are predators that can see you that you can't see and I'm not entirely comfortable when I'm not aware of what's around me. Call me paranoid but I've gotten spoiled living in Florida. :D
These are all good points. Night diving has limited visibility. You can only see where your dive light points.

This reminds me of my city-boy university room mate driving at night with his new car. We went camping one weekend and he frooze up once we left town. He had never driven outside town before. No street lights made him panic...
 
Not till I started diving at night did I realize how limited I was with the day time skills I had. navigation is a brease until you loose your wide view of things. using a compass is an eye opener as you can not do way point navigation. Realization that contour and few other factors are all you have to get from point a to b in the dark is a lesson in it self. Buddy system takes on a whole new dimension. Most think you don't need good stuff till you go cave. until you night dive.
 
As the days are getting shorter here in Ontario I've been accidently moving into night diving. Two dives ago we gave up after 25 minutes. I found buoyancy control a lot more difficult when I couldn't see the bottom of the lake. I was staring at my depth gauge a lot. Not much fun.

Next dive somebody lent me a light, buoyancy was easy and the dive was loads of fun. So I picked up a GoBe 500 and tonight I'm planning to do my first "on purpose" night dive. I've read some articles with some tips and I have to agree with @giffenk that there doesn't seem to be a huge reason to take the course. @Francesea do you know if the book is available on its own? Google shows just the course without even the e-learning option.
 
This is 4 reasons why you should night dive. And I agree. I love night dives.

Please convince me that "we" need to take a course? Learning to turn on and signal with a dive light takes about 2 minutes, unless you are slow. Then it takes all of 5 minutes.

I believe everyone should night dive. I would trade a day dive for a night dive anytime. I am not sure anyone needs more than a few minutes of instruction. I do not believe this requires a course.

Every LOB trip we do, they provide free night diving training. It takes 2 minutes...except for the slow people...

Everyone has a different learning curve and reason for taking a particular course. While you don't see the value in a night diver course(and that's perfectly fine), some may gain a great deal from it that goes beyond "turning on a light". I never took a drysuit course personally, but that doesn't mean it's not a valuable learning experience for others.
 
I've taken the night course and done several night dives, and while I'm not incapable it's not my preference. I like visibility in areas other than where my light points. Also the human doesn't have great night vision and there are predators that can see you that you can't see and I'm not entirely comfortable when I'm not aware of what's around me. Call me paranoid but I've gotten spoiled living in Florida. :D

Hey, Joe!

We all have our preferences when it comes to diving, and sometimes those preferences change over time. I personally used to love cold water diving, nowadays I find myself yearning for some clear 80+ degree water. Not sure if that's just old age or what.
 

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