Tell me about your 1st Night Dive

[mnfsh]

did my first night dive October 2004 at Paradise Reef in Cozumel. They make it a point to get you into the water before the sun sets so it's not a totally dark experience, and once you hit bottom all the lights in your group illuminate so many things to see it is just amazing. One thing I will never forget watching was an octupus hunting, it leapt from a piece of coral and almost snagged a crab for dinner even though there were 7 dive lights shining on it. Another highlight was on the surface before getting back on the boat was laying face down and seeing the luminescent sea life right below the surface. Debfife all I can say is "Go for It"

 

[ScubaJW]

My first night dive took place few weeks ago in West Seattle, Washington (Cove 2). My dive buddy and I set up our gears and went in. Geez, it was completely dark! I barely see anything until I come closer. Thanks to HID light, I can see the ground to balance out myself. It was scary! Feels like something will come and get me or I will bump into something. I don't like the feeling and I hate it. I will probably won't do more night dives, until years later, maybe.

 

[ChrisA]

We were thinking about doing one when in Cozumel (we'll be there until 11pm).

My husband thinks I'll chicken out and that I won't get off the boat.

What was your first dive into darkness like?

I belong to a dive clube that does one night dive every week. I don't miss many of them and in addtion we have chartered some boats at night. If you do lobster hunting, it is best done at night because that is when the bugs come out of thier hiding spots.

When I was new I got a lecture from an experiance night diver/DM and we went out on a beach dive from a sandy beach and swam around at around 40 feet. I noticed that if you can't see either the surface or the botton it is hard to maintain a constant depth but I did OK and it was not a big deal. We did some drills too. Cover the lights and see what it's like, find lost buddy by covering
your light and lookin for the glow of buddy's light. It's fun.

I would recommend that you do you first few night dives over a "hard" bottom don't do a wall dive in 250 feet of water. Find a location where the sandy bottom will stop a decent.

I've seen many beginers on thier first few night dives. Many of them agree with me that it is in some ways easier to dive at night than in the day. If you can see your budy';s light you know where he is, no need to always look back and check and you can signel with light gestures
sometime better than with hand signs.

My Son, age 14, did his first night dive with me and I think it was his 8th logged dive,
no problems. What we did was do a dive at an easy location in the daytime then after dark we went back to the same spot and did the exact same dive covering the same exact route
All was kept above 35 feet.

A few don't take to it. One new diver last week aborted due to being task overloaded
but if you can folow compas heading and watch the gauges and you have decent navigation skills you will do fine. Just go slow.

I suggest taking two lights and a marker light or chem stick and turning them ALL on before you hit the water. If your primary light fails it will be good that your ackup is already on so you can find it. I started doing this after one dive where my buddy's light failed and then his backup flooded so I figure I'll give him my backup light but I could find it. It was clipped to _something_....Not a big deal as we were both comfortable with no lights Tunning thebackup on will provide a warning if it fails

One other thing. If you are diving with a group. all divers look alike at night make you and your buddy look unique. Pick a marker light color different then the others are using or use two, say "red and gren" or "blue and blue".

 

[Christi]

Hi Christi,
Yes we were planning 1-2 dives during the day and possibly the night.

Wonderful! then I say that if you are comfortable on the daytime dives, then definitely do the night dive in cozumel if you have the opportunity. It is an experience you will never forget. You'll see different behaviors and even different marine life than you do during the day. The same reef looks completely different at night...it's really just beautiful!

I will HIGHLY recommend that you request to go with a small group. More than six to eight divers on a night dive can be a mess...even eight can be too many if there are less experienced divers in the group.

Have fun!!!

 

[ChrisA]

Another highlight was on the surface before getting back on the boat was laying face down and seeing the luminescent sea life right below the surface. Debfife all I can say is "Go for It"

We have bio-luminescent plakton here. and lately it has been very active. If you go down and turn off the lights when you move your hand there is a bright blue/white trail like a commet made of bubbles. if you follow your buddy with lights out you can see huge bright swirls come off his fin tips. and your bubbles are bright when you exhale. You can write your name in light with your fingertip if you move fast and write in cursive. Then I had the idea to lay on my back and blow bubble rings Once I saw a dolphin swimming in bio-luminescent water. The disturbed water that coated it's skin glowed white/blue and it left a glowing trail at night. You couldn't see the dolphin itself just it's glowing shape, like a ghost.

This effect happens several times a year normally when the vis is poor. Last Wed. night we had just come up from a deeper dive where vis was like 40 feet but as we swam back to shore the vis closed down to about 7 feet in the warmmer and shallower water and that is where to light show started.

 

[kidspot]

My first night dive (freediving) was a "disaster" as my buddy who jumped in before me (no lights, no moon, waves crashing on rocks about 50 ft away that we could hear but not see) all of a sudden he started panicking ... turns out an octopus had latched onto his leg and he couldn't see what it was - lol - didn't make me want to go night diving...

HOWEVER ... after getting certified for scuba I went on another night dive and absolutely fell in love with it - night dives are some of the most beautiful and interesting I've been on overall. Sunday night I did a night dive and got to see about 12 huge turtles sleeping, my first jellyfish, lots of large eels out swimming around, most of the fish were sleeping and allowed you to get very close to them. Lots of fish come out at night that hide during the day, some change colors at night... And it's so relaxing... even more so than diving in the day time. Plus it's a lot easier to keep track of your buddy at night.

I'll take a night dive any day ... err I mean night of the week

Aloha, Tim

 

[paolov]

all i remember was the COLD WIND after the dive !!!

 

[baitedstorm]

My first night dive started off nice, but as soon as it got dark, I started getting sea sick (didnt take anything prior to the dive cause Ive never been effected by the yucky stuff).. I was hating every second of that boat and begged to be put in the water... My instructor got my suited up and off I went, light off, bcd not tight, but I couldn't have cared less.. On the way down, that horrible feeling started to go away (yay me) and I actually had a look around, still without my light. I felt a strong yank on my fin but kinda just shrugged it off, after all, I didn't want to see what had me if something was going to wisk me off into the deep black sea.

:laughing: turned out it was another instructor asking me if I was ok.. It was one of the most brilliant dives of my life. I loved being in total blackness only seeing where my light shined. I saw so many incredible things that night.. They had to show me the GPS in order to convince me that we were on the same old reef as always...


To date, I've done my fair share of night diving and must say it is a HAVE to! Be the last one off the boat and you'll feel more comfortable descending into the lights. Just remember, you need a light and a back-up, but it's also nice to shut it off.. We all have Rods and Cones inside our eyes, your eyes WILL adjust enough that you'll probably see shades of grey or green grey.. It's pretty cool to just check stuff out like that for a bit too...

 

[Scubagolf]

My first "night dive" was the Kona Manta Ray Dive near the harbor in Kailua-Kona on the west coast of The Big Island of Hawaii. Fantastic, but hardly a difficult initiation to night diving, with 50 or so divers in the water, all with dive lights.

 

[scott11]

We were thinking about doing one when in Cozumel (we'll be there until 11pm).

My husband thinks I'll chicken out and that I won't get off the boat.

What was your first dive into darkness like?

My first night dive was shortly after getting my OW cert and the experienced diver I was with fully briefed me on what to expect. He told me that your whole life is in the beam of your dive light and you never know what could be lurking outside of that beam of light. A shark could be directly behind and you wouldn’t know it so why worry about it. The dive was in Okinawa and they have an abundance of large black and white banded sea snakes that are said to be more venomous than a cobra but not aggressive. They are very inquisitive and only approach divers to check them out. Well, my experienced buddy is taking pictures of a large cuttle fish that is mesmerized by his light and one huge sea snake at least 4 feet long is all over his torso checking him out. I saw no need to alarm him, after all, it was not in his beam of light! I kept my distance and sat back laughing to myself because he doesn’t even know what is going on when suddenly he shifts to the side and crushed the snake up against a rock. The snake was quite stunned and fled the area very quickly confirming they are not aggressive and also not very defensive.

Since then I have probably done 50 night dives. I have had many 4 foot+ tarpon in Belize come up from behind me rubbing against the length of my body to get to my light. On the same liveaboard in Belize I was hanging on the safety stop trapeze under the boat and a very large shark was aggressively eating the fish congregating directly under the boat due to the floodlights. I have also had a large octopus come swimming directly at me full speed and crash right into my dive light.