First Night Dive and a true Homer moment

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jeckyll

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So I went out on my first night dive last night after finally getting over a nasty cold. Got my C8 eLed & my Mini40 eLed light and feel like I'm all set. The Mini40 is my backup and it's attached to my mask strap so that if I have a failure on my primary I can immediately reach it.

As we are in the water and swiming out to I test the Mini40 of course and turn it off by twisting the lens just enough to get it to turn off (in case I need to turn it on I won't have to rotate the lens very far, smart eh? ;) ).

We get down to about 35 fsw and I look at my computer and don't have to touch a button to turn the backlight on. Seems that someone must be right behind me as there is a light shining right on the computer. Perfect! The mysterious stranger must have stayed right behind me the entire dive below 35 fsw because there is constantly a light on my computer whenever I look at it. Good stuff! I look around to see who's behind & above me, but can't see them. Odd.

We get back above 30 fsw and magically the 'stranger' disapears. Odd again. Couldn't figure out why now I had to use my backlight on my computer.

I finally figured out when I got home that the pressure below 35 fsw pushed on the Mini 40 enough to engage the contact. My 'backup' light was on for most of the dive.

DOH!! :D Of course there was never anyone behind me!

Other than that I had a great first night dive, we saw a seal hunt some fish just at the edge of our lights and that was awesome!

Happy Turkey Day for you US folks.

Bjorn
 
Sounds like you should leave it on all the time since it was working out so well for you. :)
 
I get a similar issue with my emergency strobe. It turns itself on below about 16m due to pressure.
 
Yeah, and the fun thing is, if you get aggressive about backing it out to keep it from coming on, you can flood it . . . BTDT :)

Congratulations on your night dive! We're all going to be doing lots of them over the next few months in the PNW.
 
TSandM:
Yeah, and the fun thing is, if you get aggressive about backing it out to keep it from coming on, you can flood it . . .

At least that will keep it from turning on...
 
I have done one night dive - and wanted to murder my buddy after....

We went in at our regular shore dive location - we were going out round a pipe (approx 30m out) and back in. Simple no? I wish.

My buddy HAD bright fins - but had just bought a pair of black aqua planas. His suit is a deep blue, his mask is black, his torch is teeny and he had a nasty habbit of turning it off to play with the phosphoresence... his glow stick? He thought he would be different and attach it near the bottom of his tank.

All is going well. We are heading back in - he gives me the OK, I sign back and am checking out a starfish making its way along the bottom.

I look to my buddy... not there.
I look above, below, behind, ahead... no buddy... but I DO see a torch about 10m a head of me.
I start motioning with big circles to my buddy - our signal to recognise eachother.... bigger than the OK signal.. you know what I mean.
The torch does the big signal back... So I figure he will come back to me. Wrong.
I then see another torch near the distant torch - Not my buddy at all.
I had looked for over a minute so I knew I had to surface.
I start to head up...
Just then something grabs my calf hard and sharp.... I scream louder than I thought you could scream underwater.
I turn around grabbing my torch ready to bash whatever attacked me (read Shark).

Low and behold, there is my buddy, grabbing my slate and asking me where the hell I was going. Needless to say there was MUCH writing with naughty words.

I asked him where he was, and he showed me....
He had slid UNDER the friggin pipe on his back (glow stick in the sand) and turned off his torch. DUH!!!
No wonder I couldn't see him.

We had serious words on the surface at the end of the dive - but by then I could see the funny side... sort off.
 
Hehe, sounds fun, Jeckyll! Gotta love your invisible friend keeping the light on your computer for you. :D
 
creamofwheat:
Hehe, sounds fun, Jeckyll! Gotta love your invisible friend keeping the light on your computer for you. :D

It was d*mn funny :D I told the story tonight at the dive shop and everyone got a good laugh :07:

Anyways, what fun is doing something like that and not telling the story ;)

Bjorn
 

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