Night Diving - I don't get it

[maniago]

Can someone enlighten me on the why's of night diving? Is there some sort of bio-luminescence to be seen?

I carry a light, but its only because I'm on the mid-atlantic and you never know what you're going to get even when the sun is fullblast. But I don't find low viz to be any fun really. Extrapolating, I don't see how night would be any fun either.
What am missing here?

 

[elmer fudd]

There are several reasons you might want to try it. First, some creatures are nocturnal. For example, if you really want to see giant Pacific octopus you go out at night. I understand manta rays are the same. Second, in some of the northern latitudes days get short in the winter. Going out at night gives you more dive time. Third, some of us work in the daytime.

 

[DevonDiver]

You've done AOW, so why not flip open the Adventures in Diving manual to the night diving section and see what it tells you?

I love night dives for the following reasons;

1) Emergency of nocturnal creatures.
2) Different marine life behaviors from daytime
3) Diving in darkness with a torch tends to focus the eyes on smaller details - you tend to see more of the smaller, rarer, stuff that you miss in the daytime.
4) It's very relaxing.
5) Macro/Close-up photography looks better with a black background.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Also, at night, you light up the reef, showing its natural colors. Sunlight is filtered through the water, giving everything a blue or green tint.

 

[TMHeimer]

I got the Night Cert. years ago but have only done a couple of night dives. Here in NS I would tend to agree that what you see isn't really much different than during day--the usual cast of characters. Certainly haven't been able to collect better shells. Maybe the difference is much greater in the South?
Maybe I should try it some more--seems it's a little more work to do (lights, etc.) for not much more return. Plus the reduced viz--our's can be anywhere from 30' down to 0 anyway.

 

[sealionesse]

A lot of the reasons I would give have already been mentioned. Some that aren't mentioned:

1) I love turning off my light underwater and seeing the bioluminescence.
2) If it is a night dive from shore, I love just looking at the stars while kicking out. Sometimes I think I might just want to swim out and look at the stars while floating on my back. but it's hard to fund a buddy that would be interested in skipping the diving part of the dive
3) It's nice not to have the sun beating down on you. It's the same reason when I swim laps, I swim in the evening.

 

[Lopez116]

I used to wonder the same thing until I did my first night dive in cayman. Mind blowing

 

[rhwestfall]

Like those above have said, it different creatures or creatures in different activities.

Here in northern freshwater, the night river drifts usually result in encounters with muskellunge as they are out hunting. Pretty darn impressive to come upon a 4'+ fish.....

The bass are also approachable, many times grabbing prey in the zone of your light...

Nothing in comparison to the reef changes, but it's all pretty awesome.

 

[doctormike]

I don't understand. Why would you want to stop diving just because the sun goes down...?

 

[diverrex]

We have a site here in SoCal, Redondo Beach (Vets Park) that is all sand so most people consider it an average to poor site during day dives cause you just don't see much but at night all kinds of interesting stuff comes out. It is much more popular as a night dive. Plus as someone mentioned you can go to a regular day job and still get in a dive during the week at night.