That is exactly what/is my motivation to do night diving. I can take all the classes in the world but there is nothing more important than gaining real life experiance:wink1:
Thanks,
John
Absolutely! My wife has been worried about night dives, so that has limited the number we have done. However, we had a "real life experience" in August that significantly changed her attitude--a recreational night dive from hell.
Basically, the DMs should have called it off because of the wind and waves and it was made worse by the boat anchoring in only 17 ft of water over the reef. Way too much surge in full 3-D motion, plus there were too many divers for the conditions. My wife was knocked over on the deck by the surge just as she was about to giant stride. Bruised but not badly.
In the water, it was mayhem with too many people, guide impossible to identify, surge pulling us up and casting us down. So much so that we got ankle cuts from the lettuce coral. Trying to avoid reef/people contact was difficult. My wife and I solved some of the difficulties, each of us placing a finger through a D ring on the other's BCD. It made us significantly more buoyantly stable and we could not lose each other among other divers. More fun occurred when my primary light died (LED module overheated and failed) half way through. Swam for 45 min having seen almost nothing, then got sick on deck (along with about 6 others) while waiting for everyone to return.
It was a real life experience. Not pleasant by any means, but one of those events in which, in an ironic way, you are glad to have participated. We are no longer novice divers, having moved to the intermediate category. This dive contributed to that step up. It was a "not fun" dive, but the experience certainly made us better. As a result, my wife has become much more enthusiastic about more ordinary night dives.
