Night dive with full moon?

[diverdowndh]

I am very aware of the negative effects of a full moon on elk and deer hunting... however, with the full lunar eclipse next week while I am in Cozumel, I was wondering if anyone knows what effects the full moon has on undersea night activity? I would think with the added light all sorts of things would be out on the hunt, but as with elk hunting, does the full moon keep things in hiding because the hunters are out?
For some reason this never even occurred to me.... there is a total lunar eclipse next Wednesday night:
NASA - Total Lunar Eclipse
Any insights?
D

 

[DandyDon]

How cool! I remember one in the 80s that was bright red and went on hours. Thanks for the heads-up...!

Full moon on a night dive? As much as water reduces light, I doubt it matters much at 20 ft, but if someone disagrees from experience, then ignore me. :blush:

Have a great trip. ilot: This was earlier today...
[c]

[/c]

 

[diverdowndh]

Thanks Don, it won't be snowing so I don't care what it does... look at those temps! Beats the 18degrees outside like it is right now... we got almost 6 inches of snow yesterday, my trip can't get here soon enough.

 

[David P]

the moon plays a major role in marine life! I would guess fish too, but I know shrimp spawn when the moon is bright(I even performed some quazie scientific test with dimmable LEDs over an aquarium with multiple shrimps loaded with eggs) Clams!!!! Spawn by the moon, a buddy was trying a large tank packed with clams, hooked up to a several thousand gallon aquarium system to be used as natural filtration... It worked fine until one month during an extra bright full moon... He sat in his house watchng tv and heard a bunch of splasing out back and thought a dog jumped in a tank, he went out to investigate and found ALL of his clams spawning. It was neat for a few minutes untill he realized how big of a mess it was, the poor clams basically comitted suicide by polluting the system and killed thousands of dollars worth of stony corals.

 

[dboddy]

DandyDon...I have read your replies for some time now, but it was not until this morning that I really paid attention to your signature at the bottom of your posts. Placing DAN's phones numbers in your cell seems like such an obvious thing to do...but it has always slipped my mind. Thanks for a smart Friday morning reminder!

Dave

 

[seaducer]

There are alot of animals that base their life cycles on the moon, breeding during a full or new moon, most often in the days after one of those.

FWIW, I was in Bonaire last year for a full moon, and while it was bright enough to read a newspaper at depth without a light, the diurnal fish were sleeping, and the nocturnal fish were active, just like they would be any other night. You should have a blast in Coz this week!

Now, I have never dove during an eclipse, so if you are under during that time, let us know if anything odd happens!

 

[PvtStash]

there IS a connection!

 

[Garrobo]

I don't know about a full moon, which is and effect of light, but it seems to me that if the moon is overhead and can lift the seas from two to 40 feet in some areas the gravitational pull surely must have some physiological effect on the human body especially when the sun and moon are aligned. May the force be with you.

 

[Barracuda2]

I dove a total eclipse once in Belize. To my unscientific observation I noticed that there seemed to be some confusion among the residence. Some of the fish life seemed very jittery and nervous in their movements. I noticed that at the peak of the eclipse coral polyps began to spread their arms as if feeding like you would see on night dives. I'm sure that if I had more knowledge, I probably would have noticed much more.

 

[Paco]

This reminds me of my last dive on the wreck Niagara in Lake Michigan close to Port Washington. It was a night dive and the visibility was so good that we could see the moon from 40 ffw. I don´t recall if it was indeed a full moon. We also had a very nice boat ride back to Port with the moon reflecting off the water.