Night Dive Light questions

[jo8243]

When doing a night dive with a diveop, is it typical for the operator to provide/rent lights to the customers or are you normally expected to provide your own light? Also, how many watts is considered necessary for a primary light at night?

Thanks

 

[Charlie99]

This varies from region to region. Dive ops in most resort areas are used to renting lights to customers, but often do not supply a backup light.

For clear tropical waters, I'm happy with just the 7.2W high intensity halogen PCa light by Ikelite. It is small enough that I carry it in the daytime for looking into nooks and crannies.

The most common primary lights are inthe 6-15 watt range when setup for using alkaline batteries. Many lights have options for using a higher powered lamp (15-30 watt range) when using rechargeable batteries.

You and your buddy should have lights of roughly equal brightness to make it easier to signal each other by crossing one another's light beam.

Since most dive ops don't supply a backup light even if they supply the primary light for a night dive, it is a good idea to at least purchase your own backup light. The popuar 4AA Q40 by Underwater Kinetics works well as a daytime light for looking under ledges, etc, and since its beam is tightly focussed it still works well for signalling at night even though it is only 2.1 watts. It won't be suitable as a primary, though, because the tight beam only illuminates a tiny portion of the reef. Lights intended to be primary lights will have a broader illumination pattern so that you can see more of the reef at one time.

Charlie

p.s. More is not necessarily better in a night dive. In clear tropical waters, after warning my buddy beforehand, I often use just the tiny 0.4W 2 AAA mini light from UK for most of the dive. Your eyes can see a lot more when you haven't destroyed your night vision with a super bright light.

 

[ShakaZulu]

Review your night diving material, then sit back, poor yourself a drink and evaluate all the negative possibilities if your dive light fails. Now ask yourself if you really want to trust the Dive Op lights............ok, now go buy yourself a Underwater Kinetics Sunlight "C8 eLED" Dive Light with Pistol Grip. Oh, while you're there, pickup a backup light too.

 

[whalerkyle]

Yep, what he said.

 

[Henryville]

As my tech instructor is fond of saying, "Underwater, two is one and one is none." I would not night dive on a team where divers lacked backup lights. You want to have lights you can trust, they do not need to be hundreds of dollars, make the investment if you are going to night dive.

You might also ask the diveop what their policy is on calling the dive in the event of a light failure. Hopefully you will not hear something like "as long as the DM's light is working we'll keep diving..."

 

[CUunderH2O]

Buy your own light or 2, then you won't have to rely on what's available at the dive op. If you want a nice, small, bright (7.5 watt) fairly inexpensive light, try the Princeton Tek Surge. It takes 8 AA's, but will run on 4 as well. I use it as my backup on night dives and my primary for daylight dives (when I want to look into/under stuff). I also own a UK D8 Sunlight. I find it too big & heavy to use most days, but it's great for night dives.

 

[Charlie99]

Review your night diving material, then sit back, poor yourself a drink and evaluate all the negative possibilities if your dive light fails. Now ask yourself if you really want to trust the Dive Op lights.

Ummmm. Are you afraid that the underwater version of the monster-under-the-bed is going to come get you?

I have a cylume or small marker light on my tank. My dive computer has a backlight. My buddy has a light. Loss of a primary in an open water dive isn't the major crisis a lot of people make it out to be.

Yes, I do have a backup light. And yes, I do have a 3rd light that I loan to my buddy so that he now has a backup and we won't have to abort if his rental light dies. But in the typical tropical resort night dive -- 40', never approaching NDL, 6 divers within the 100' viz, enough light from shore or the moon for orientation -- the failure of a primary light just isn't that big of a deal. Definitely not such a big deal that I'm willing to haul around a big 8 D cell light in my baggage.

If you are really afraid of those nightime monsters, I suggest that you spend $500-$1000 on an HID cannister light. Very useful in low viz areas, but gross overkill, disruptive to marine life, and generally a nuisance in high viz night dives.

 

[primalchaos]

When doing a night dive with a diveop, is it typical for the operator to provide/rent lights to the customers or are you normally expected to provide your own light? Also, how many watts is considered necessary for a primary light at night?

Thanks

I think it depends on the operator. The shop I go through was more than happy to supply one (hey, I might like it enough to buy one like it), but they did want you to have your own backup light. The C8 was bright enough for a clear water night here in Michigan.

PC

 

[ShakaZulu]

Ummmm. Are you afraid that the underwater version of the monster-under-the-bed is going to come get you?
......
blah, blah, blah......
......
Ian HID cannister light. Very useful in low viz areas, but gross overkill, disruptive to marine life, and generally a nuisance in high viz night dives.

Senario: Night dive, La Jolla Shores, 110ft max planned depth. All is well, until 20 minutes into the dive, my dive buddy and I swim through a white blanket of crap. Before I can grab onto his tank valve, his gone. I look around, quickly get disoriented because of the zero viz, and now our dive plan calls for us to surface. Murphy steps in and my dive light fails/falls to the bootom of the ocean. I feel something touching me in the dark, but can't figure out what it is. I can't remember how to get the backlight on my computor to turn on, have no idea of my ascend rate, don't know how deep I am and still have to do a safety stop..........hopefully I'm going ascending, and not going real deep. Oh, s@#$, then my O-Ring blows out, plus I feel cardiac arrest coming on.

PS. Didn't really happen, but still..........

 

[Ishie]

Senario: Night dive, La Jolla Shores, 110ft max planned depth. All is well, until 20 minutes into the dive, my dive buddy and I swim through a white blanket of crap. Before I can grab onto his tank valve, his gone. I look around, quickly get disoriented because of the zero viz, and now our dive plan calls for us to surface. Murphy steps in and my dive light fails/falls to the bootom of the ocean. I feel something touching me in the dark, but can't figure out what it is. I can't remember how to get the backlight on my computor to turn on, have no idea of my ascend rate, don't know how deep I am and still have to do a safety stop..........hopefully I'm going ascending, and not going real deep. Oh, s@#$, then my O-Ring blows out, plus I feel cardiac arrest coming on.

And when I surfaced, hanging from the boat was... a bloody hook!!!