night dives

[kingfish]

I did my first night dive during the first half of my AOW dives on the weekend and i gotta tell ya it was awesome!
I have to admit i was a little scared of the thought of diving in complete darkness but once i got underwater it was gone.

To me it was just like walking through the bush at night spotting wild animals but better as you have alot more variety on what you may find in the spotlight beam.

I will be doing alot more night dives in the future!!

Jas.

[DivingsInMyBlood]

Glad to hear you had fun, cant wait untill i do my AOW.

[kingfish]

Ta...if you do a night dive as part of the course you wont be disappoined.

Jas.

[FishFood]

THanks. Good to know! I Start AOW next week and will do a night dive.

The only thing Im worried about is brushing up against a sea urchin or jelly fish... OUCH

[moosicman]

for some reason the thought of night diving really really scares me....i don't like flying at night either...not that that has anything to do with the price of eggs in china......i wonder if anyone has any scary stories of night diving that would be good for HALLOWEEN!!!!!

[kingfish]

Hehe yeh i think you should be right there...one thing i did almost do was i nearly ascended into a section of the pier we were diving on.

The peripheral vision just isnt there in the darkness, so ya need to be more aware of whats above.

Jas.

[Bring the Payne]

I did a night dive in the lake while doing my AOW class. It was pitch black and the instructor had everyone turn off all their lights so it was definately dark. That was one of the most peaceful moments of my life.

[ladyfish]

Night dives are cool. Just think about the fact that you'll see stuff you probably won't see during the day. Also, it's not dark if you have a flashlight.

Actually it's not dark without one (if the water is clear and the moon full). If I'm diving with a group, I tend to leave my light off. I use the light from the other divers and the moon to see what I want to see. You'll be surprised how much you can see!

[No Misses]

Here is a write up that I did on night diving back in Aug. I liked it so much that I had to re-post on this thread. I hope you enjoy it.

During one of our nocturnal libation sessions, someone put forth the proposition that “we should start the first day of lobster mini-season with a midnight dive”. At the time this seemed like a brilliant idea. All too quickly, the days ticked by. This idea started sounding a little crazy. None of us had done a night dive in several years. Some of us had never done a night dive. But, we were all too proud to back out now. The time came and out we went, into the black abyss. There was a 3/4 moon overhead and almost no clouds in the sky. It is an eerie feeling, wondering what lurks outside of your flashlights beam. Hunting Lobsters at night is 180 degrees different from daylight hunts. During the day, you look for ledges, coral heads and holes for the lobsters to be hiding in. At night they freely roam the reef. This is a good thing, since finding “structure” is very difficult at night. As you sweep your light across the reef, you need to look for the reflection of their eyes. Once you spot a bug, you must keep your light on it. If you shine the light away, they run and hide. While keeping them frozen in your light, you just swim up and grab them from behind. It’s almost too easy. Finding the lobster this way is the only hard part. There is no rhyme or reason as to where they will be. Although I have never seen it, I have heard tales of people witnessing “lobster walks”. This is where dozens of bugs are walking single file down the reef. Supposedly, you can just grab your limit as they pass by. We did not find any congregation of bugs. Every one was out by itself. We didn’t come anywhere close to our limit of 12 lobsters per person. I think we averaged about 4 per person. On the flip side, these night dives were way cool. We saw numerous fish sleeping on the reef. They didn’t even wake up when you held your light 6 inches from them. The colors that are usually muted by the waters depth were vibrantly illuminated by our lights (red is the first color to be filtered out by sea water). All of the animals that we saw were at close range. They did not seem to fear the light. We saw turtles, basket stars, eels, a spotted eagle ray, and many more. On our accent to the surface, Ed and I made the customary safety stop at 15-20 feet. While slowly kicking to hold my depth, I looked down and noticed all of the bio-luminescence. The turbulence from my fins was causing them to light up and spiral down. It was like swimming in stars. We turned off our lights and enjoyed the show while completing our safety stop.

P.S. the lobsters were tasty ;-)

[dallasdivergirl]

I loved seeing the string of pearls when we were diving at night in Roatan