Any advice for first night dive?

[2airishuman]

Any suggestions, what to expect, how do you know which way is up?

In this modern age, people differ in the degree of comfort they have with darkness. As you are in Tennessee, you may know where the Big Frog Wilderness is. In my (misspent) youth, I would go for walks there at night. I would carry a flashlight but typically did not use it.

As a general rule, I take two lights on every dive, including daytime dives. Often, when diving with other people, I give a light to someone who needs one.

Generally, unless you are comfortable with blackwater (zero viz) dives, you would want to stay close to a wall or some other visual reference you can see. Most DMs/instructors who lead night dives understand this. You could ask the individual who is organizing the dive, if you are concerned.

The handful of night dives I've been on have all been memorable. Enjoy.

 

[MargaritaMike]

I think you should wait until you can do your first night dive under the direct supervision of an instructor. This opinion is based on 2 points. 1) You are asking the question, which conveys to me some trepidation and uncertainty. 2) You have 1 dive after certification. At this level your task loading is pretty heavy while you are underwater even in daylight with good visibility. I think diving at night is probably one of the best things since sliced bread, but it does add some task loading that you probably not ready for yet. I don't want to discourage you from night diving, I just think you need to get some more dives under your belt. The water will still be there and the sun goes down every day.

I agree with If you are not comfortable doing a planned dive, don't do it. I would change it to "If you are not completely comfortable...."

Whatever you decide, stay safe and enjoy diving.

Just my 2¢

Cheers -

 

[ystrout]

Bring a flashlight.

 

[Neilwood]

Bring a flashlight.

I would always suggest bring at least 2 - one main and one spare (they can be the same type though). You never know if a light will crap out on you for any number of reasons so always having a backup is worthwhile. I always carry two even on a daytime dive as you never know when you might want the light (they can be handy to look in crevices for critters).

To the OP, a very important lesson to learn as a new diver is never be afraid to call a dive for any reason. If you aren't comfortable with it, call it - even before you get in the water.

 

[scrane]

The longest 5 minutes of my dive career was spent sitting in the dark, on the bottom at 30' in the Caribbean with our lights off, getting our eyes acclimated so we could see the bioluminescence around us. I won't do that again.

 

[echopkb]

We did not go on the dive, and I don't know if the others did or not. The others are well seasoned instructors and they would be the only people I would do a first night dive with if I ever do one. I appreciate all the comments and will certainly keep them in mind when I am ready to venture into darkness.

@scrane- that would require some serious hand holding and kum-ba-ya singing for me. I think the reward of seeing the bioluminescence would be worth the darkness.

 

[CLoP]

Don't dive with unfamiliar gear. That's one of the first rules in "the book" and I learned mine the hard way.

Wast on a boat trip to a local diving hotspot and the plan was to freedive on day 1 and scuba on day 2. I wasn't gonna do the optional day 1 night dive because I wasn't certified as one but I was given the chance to do the night diver dive 1 that night. I rented gear that afternoon and jumped in at night.

1. Jet fins. Those things are cinder blocks for someone who uses carbon fiber freediving fins 98% of the time. Cannot seem flutter kick with them for the life of me. I tried frog kicking but the toes of my booties and the footpockets didn't like each other. There was basically no follow-through cause the toes of my booties are tapered and were loose inside the fins.
2. My mask was "set up" for a 5mm hood. The hood I wore for the night dive was 3mm and that 2mm difference made my mask just loose enough to keep flooding.
3. My personal dive light has been downgraded as a secondary and I used a more powerful one as primary. I was unfamiliar with how to change the brightness, the form factor, and how it was on my hand as opposed to being clipped to my BCD.
4. I used my freediving watch as a bottom timer (well I planned to) except I stupidly put it in freedive mode out of habit. That thing started beeping 3 minutes into the dive cause it probably thought that I was dying.

Bottom line: heavy uncomfortable fins + constantly flooding mask + occupied hand + freaking out dive watch + diving in a surge-y place with a bunch of urchins at night for the first time = task overloading. Good experience but not something I would repeat all over again. Yeah. Make sure you're familiar with the exact setup you're gonna use so there's less strangeness to the experience.