Wow a question about my favorite type of diving. Night diving is a more focused type of scuba diving than the more common daylight hour dives both in fresh as well as salt water. At first, I admit, it was a bit eerie but after getting underwater on my first night dive, I was hooked (metaphorically speaking),
The marine life that you see is usually what people hope to see during a day dive. In the ocean, the night comes alive with lobsters coming out of hiding, Octopus begin to comb the reefs and the corals bloom with fantastic colors as they extend themselves to feed. Fish that we see peeking out of crevasses like the squirrelfish come out of their hiding holes while daylight fish such as the parrot fish spin a cacoon about themselves to begin their nightly rest. I don't think that I have ever seen such a majestic sight as seeing stingrays fly lazily through the water at night.
When I say night diving is a more focused type of diving, I mean that your eyes are drawn to what is seen with your underwater light. The little things that you may not have noticed during the day are more visible.
The water is not all inky blackness around you, the light from the moon, stars and other divers illuminate quite a lot of area in the water. There are even creatures (dynoflagellates) that make their own light show underwater using bioluminescence. I have turned off my dive light underwater and the simple act of waving your hand through the water can activate them making it almost look like a surrealistic comet trail in the water. Night diving is just one more reason to appreciate the underwater world. I like it so much that I teach night diving whenever I get the chance. I am a scuba instructor for http://www.visibilityunlimited.com and watching the ooohs and ahhhs of scuba divers learning to night dive is fantastic.
Source(s):
scuba instructor for http://www.visibilityunlimited.com
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