Tell me about your 1st Night Dive

[raposarose]

My second dive without an instructor was a night dive. It was on the weekend I got engaged. My (now) wife and I had gone away for a "diving" weekend, though I had other plans. We dove at Monterey's Breakwater Cove. We rented flashlights, one large and one small. The batteries ran out on the large one 3/4 way through the dive. The bioluminescent plankton was beautiful, a kind of sparkling effect in the water (other times it is a gauzy light -- maybe it depends on the plankton type). We saw a lot of marine life and the dive had an eerie mystery since we both were so inexperienced with diving. The cove is by a coast guard base and right before walking into the water we heard "Taps" playing in the distance. Ominous! A great dive!!

(Now my first time snorkelling at night was something else too. I was halfway through my OW cert. class and I asked the instructor about night diving. He said that each dive should have glow sticks and a flashlight and a way of getting back to shore. So my friend and I got the equipment and just swam out in our snorkelling gear at San Diego's La Jolla Cove. We saw some lobsters, plenty of seaweed, some rockfish. It was a little daunting to go into that black water the very first time. But ever since I heard of night diving it sounded so intriguing that I really wanted to try it. I guess that's why I didn't wait for a specialty class or anything and tried it really early on. I always loved the night ocean. In truth it was a very mellow swim, but in practice, going out like that for the first time felt like an amazing adventure.)

 

[pickens_46929]

It was pretty awesome though I was a bit nervous. We did it on the Benwood in Pennekamp and it turned out great. Took about 10 mins to get used to the fact of it being dark. Once that happened I was amazed at all the critters that came out during the night vs. those we saw earlier that day. There was a partial moon so you could actually turn off or cover your light. Simply amazing.

Now mind you... there were no currents, the water was really still and we were in 30 ft. of water at a dive site we had just done 4 hours ago. That did help take the edge off things.

The boat ride out was pretty darn spectacular too... setting sun, etc.

Just did my 10th night dive in Brockville, Ontario on the Rothesay. Nice shore dive... went in at dusk and came out at night. Beautiful!

Have fun!

 

[Vie]

My first night dive was my 37th dive—there were so many people in the water (and so many lights) that it was almost like a day dive—visibility was good but I din’t see much because it was so crowded!

My most memorable night dives were during a trip to Komodo three years later. For the first dive, the current was much stronger than anticipated and we ended up in a very fast drift/night dive—a bit too exciting for me and after about 15 minutes I thumbed the dive. The second dive is one of those experiences that I will treasure forever. After a shallow dive (where we saw a pink frogfish, a huge hermit crab using a Triton shell as his “house,” a cuttlefish and some small lobsters) we turned off our lights and swam back to the boat amidst the bioluminescence—it was absolutely magical; like flying in space amongst the stars.

 

[BabyDuck]

my first night dive was in a quarry i was/am familiar with. i had a little flashlight, so my dive plan was 'don't lose kwickert', 'cause he has a 10w hid! no worries, no nerves, smooth and nice, sleeping fish, weird to have such low viz at that site since it's usually very very clear.

 

[Firebrand]

My first night dive was in Key Largo at a site called North North Dry Rocks with Squalus and Pennypue. Right before we hit the water, Squalus got a call from Scubapolly saying she was waiting at the Miami Airport for us. We decided to dive anyways, and although I had been going to the Florida Keys nearly every year, all my life, I saw my first pipefish, and it was awesome! It wasn't pitch black because we had a full moon and no cloud cover, but everyone on that dive had a light, and with the crystal clear waters of the Keys, it was easy keeping track of my buddy. (I dove the Spiegel Grove with Scubapolly the next day!) 5.5 hours to Key Largo for a night dive, then up to Miami to pick up Polly, then back to Key Largo Waffle House, then a few hours of sleep, topped with two dives at the Spiegel Grove, then 5.5 hours back to reality. What an awesome trip that was!

 

[piikki]

We had our first night dive the day before yesterday. All summer I had been thinking that I will probably not like this at all. Not great friend of darkness on land even. Well, we had had great time all day with buddy, instructor and two other guys, and I felt very comfortable going down in pitch dark, having even tricked my buddy to take the red beacon on her tank while I took the green – which I thought was going to be less visible (I proved to be wrong, I was the easy spot all dive everyone said).

We slammed our lights on, and after all the ahhing and ohhing for the only Light Cannon in the group we started going around two little islands in the cove. I have to say that if I did not have constant mask/ear trouble and even despite that, it was a very peaceful experience. Maintaining contact with the group was easier than it had been during the day. Even though boys darted in front of us every time I had to do some extra work with mask, it was comforting to see their lights in distance time to time turning back and asking OK?? Could not have been done in daytime. All the fishies were around and about, way less boat noise (even though we did drift a little bit too far into the only channel were the two bigger boats on the lake float by).

Only surprise happened after buddy had an accidental floating episode, and as we descended again I started having ear trouble. We had to stop altogether and as we were ready to kick on we both confirmed direction and were about a foot from banging our heads to a rock wall. Yep, it’s worth checking BOTH depth gauge AND compass a bit more often on a night dive. Since buddy had floated up, we both wiggled ourselves 90 degrees off course while I had to blow exhaust bubbles into my hood to clear that stubborn ear.

I think I would have been bit more freaked being there alone with just my buddy. We had nice hour of leisurely kicking around in familiar cove knowing there were 13 lights between the five of us, so they can’t all fail same time. It took a lot of edge off for me knowing the group beforehand – nobody would be dumped. Seeing some traffic lights around made navigating a bit easier, reduction in task loading on the first go certainly helped. If you haven’t been to Cozumel before I’d recommend trying the night dive somewhere familiar first, so the pressure is not on on your holiday.

 

[radinator]

My first was at Shaw's Cove in Laguna Beach. I knew the place from daytime dives and its really forgiving so I wasn't nervous or anything. I found suiting up without the hot sun beating down on me to be really really nice!

During the dive, I found keepign track of my buddies was a lot easier because of their lights. I also liked it when we turned off all the lights. Evey time I moved my hand through the water we got the biolum activity going - looked like pixie dust.

 

[MSilvia]

I expected to have a lot of anxiety, but I was enjoying the dive so much, and was so relaxed, that I had over 20% better air consumption than ever before. I found it easier to keep track of where other divers were, I saw more and different marine life, and using portable artificial lights meant seeing everything in brilliant colors I had previously never seen.

So long as you focus your attention where you focus your light, instead of thinking about all the things you can't see, you'll have a great time!

 

[gregor1234]

I did a lot of night snorkeling before I ever did any night scuba diving so my first night scuba was actually anticlimactic. My third night scuba was very instructive.

First night snorkel...

My first night snorkel we were camped by the side of a lake and had been snorkeling on the rock wall drop-off there a few steps from out tent door for the past several days. I decided I wanted to go at night. My wife definitely did not want to go at night but agreed to sit by the lakeside with a camping lantern so I could keep my bearings.

We didn't have any sort of underwater light. I ended up taking the plastic bag from a loaf of bread and putting a regular flashlight it, double-twisted the end and tying it off with a "twist-em".

I was fairly sanguine about the whole thing until I got my head underwater. Because of the narrow, dim beam there was a significant tunnel-effect and at that point I remembered how earlier in the week (in the daytime), an enormous carp had loomed up out of the low-vis and startled the bejeezus out of me. I could not shake the image and stayed in the shallows the whole time to avoid running into another monster carp. I was also careful to look around and locate my wife on shore after surfacing every dive. I didn't really see much except a few small catfish skittering to get out of the light (each one of which startled me). But, I was still impressed at how much more vivid the colors were when not washed-out with blue-green filtered daylight..

The bread bag eventually filled with water and shorted out the flashlight. When the flashlight would light no more even after emptying all the water, I made my exit.

My third night scuba dive...

After many more night snorkel expeditions in fresh and salt water, I decided it was time to go night scuba... For myself, I was very comfortable at night and probably would've just gone ahead with it but since I have two teenage diver-boys, we all went and took the PADI night-diver course. It was only when we decided to do night diving that I actually "splurged" and bought real underwater primary lights, and the difference between this and so many water-resistant flashlights and flashlights in baggies was dramatic. With the very bright lights that are available, night diving isn't all that different from diving low vis on a cloudy day. We were all very comfortable in the water and were covering out lights to see what we could see by moonlight alone wondering why we'd even bothered to take the course until the third dive of the course. (PADI only requires two night dives for this specialty but we did three for a number of unimportant reasons.) This third dive was to prove very instructive.

A narrative describing this third dive would be lengthy so I'll just relate the lessons learned. (1) Night divers tend to look alike. When 30 other divers all descend on your group, it's easy to loose track of who is in your group and who is a stranger. (2) Without the wider field of visual clues apparent during the day, different parts of the wreck (reef) can look very much alike. Muck stirred up my a multitude of other divers adds a double whammy. The left airplane wingtip looks just like the right one. The earth's magnetic is not likely to reverse itself during your particular dive so trust the compass more, and your memory of landmarks less. (3) As you ascend in daytime even in very low vis, you can still see your bubbles and some of the tiny the particulates in the water. At night these can be invisible. It is much easier to get into a runaway ascent without these minute reference points. I would avoid doing any vertical ascent at night without some sort of reference. (4) Successful navigation in midwater at night seeing neither bottom nor surface nor anything to the right or left can give you a real sense of accomplishment.

 

[String]

First night dive. Very easy. Was used to doing daytime dives where it got near totally dark and in low visibility. First night dive was abroad and with aid of a torch there was no real difference to the dark daytime dives. Keep torch pointed a bit at the bottom to get your orientation and just enjoy it. Lots of life you dont see in the day and the same sight at night looks totally different at night.

Nothing difficult or scarey about a night dive.