Cozumel Night Diving - Need Tips suggestions

[highdesert]

Do you and your husband own your own fins? I'm asking because my wife/buddy has problems sorting me out from others on a night dive. I tell her to just remember what my fins look like. She says that's a problem ... I don't know why, I won't even go there.

Anyway, my fins are light colored, so I took a big fat permanent marker and put my initials on the bottom of my fins. She loves it! We actually had people over last night looking at pictures from the last dive trip we did together, and there were my fins with my initals, showing up about forty feet away. Just another little thing to help out in terms of finding your buddy, which is a secure and comforting thing at night. Can't help you out on this one if you have dark colored fins.

 

[Budgirl]

My fins are hot pink and so far I havent seen anyone else wearing that color when we are diving...my husband usually hovers over my right shoulder, but he figures on the night dive I will be attached to his tank!

I try to stay pretty close to the divemaster when we are diving, cause they seem to know where everything is hiding.

 

[Martha]

Do you and your husband own your own fins? I'm asking because my wife/buddy has problems sorting me out from others on a night dive. I tell her to just remember what my fins look like. She says that's a problem ... I don't know why, I won't even go there.

Anyway, my fins are light colored, so I took a big fat permanent marker and put my initials on the bottom of my fins. She loves it! We actually had people over last night looking at pictures from the last dive trip we did together, and there were my fins with my initals, showing up about forty feet away. Just another little thing to help out in terms of finding your buddy, which is a secure and comforting thing at night. Can't help you out on this one if you have dark colored fins.

My husband has dark fins and he used some kind of yellow paint stick to put his initials on them. He initially did it while doing his training to become a DM so they wouldn't get mixed up with other people's fins, but I've found it very helpful on night dives when we're with a group.

 

[rje634]

To give you an idea of some of the things that you'll see on a night dive check out the pictures the trip review I posted a few months ago. Here is the link:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cozumel/219545-trip-report-cozumel-palace-blue-xt-sea-diving.html
The pictures of the seahorses, octopus, eels, parrot fish, spendid toadfish, and the juvenile drumfish were are taken during my night dives.

Have a great time..

 

[ggunn]

I'm opposed to tank lights, including glowsticks, for Cozumel night dives. One of the nice things about night diving is the relative darkness. This is especially true on bright, moonlit nights when you can do a dive without turning on your light at all (though you'd miss the octopuses...) It's not as if you're in a cave or murky water. Extraneous lights are just distracting and can kill dark adaptation ("night vision").

Yes, divers can lose track of their groups. We were diving with just my family of 3 and a DM when someone appeared to go way out of his way to leave a large, cattle-boat-sized group to join us. I didn't mind until he literally elbowed my son out of the way while the kid was trying to photograph a squid. I turned him by his shoulders and pushed him toward his group then made "shoo" motions to try to get him to rejoin them before they got too far away to find. Only when the DM, my wife, my kid, and I all lined up shoulder-to-shoulder and motioned him away did he seem to get a clue. Tank lights would have done nothing to keep him oriented, since he ignored much more basic evidence that he was with the wrong group. My belief is that all it takes is a bit of situational awareness to avoid losing your buddy, even at night.

The analogy mentioned above to a scene in "E.T." is apt - people tend to go nuts with the lights.

There's no way I'm going to get off the boat on a night dive without being marked with a glow stick so my wife can find me. It's no biggie; they aren't that bright and they really don't affect your night vision much if at all. They are certainly nowhere near as bright as the dive lights everyone is shining around.

We were out on Paradise in a group of 6 or so when a cattle boat dropped a huge load of divers directly on top of us. What, couldn't they see our lights? We got off to the side to try to let them pass, but one of them "joined" us and started being really pushy with one of us trying to look at a crab or something. Our DM went over to the stray diver and shined his (really bright) dive light right into his face. That got the message through to him; when he could see again he went off and found his group.

 

[H20Bubbles]

Okay...now I am thinking that one night dive may not be enough! We will be diving about 4 or 5 days before the full moon...

We have to say that night dives have really become one of our favorites. The things you will experience are totally awesome...

 

[Namchief]

I have a Video of me over a crab while it was eating on my first night dive with a camera it is rather large file 25 meg. Click Here but might give you a first hand look at just a lil bit of a night dive. I also took pics of 2 octopuses engaging in sexual relations. Not sure of the Rating of this forum so do not want to cross the pg13 rating...lol.

 

[charlesml3]

BTW, I disagree about the post that it's no colder at night. I got MUCH colder with the same thermal protection as day diving.

I don't disagree that you got cold, but it wasn't because the water was colder at night. It takes a LONG time for water temperatures to change. Certainly not going to change in a few hours.

-Charles

 

[cduffey]

Charles, I agree with you about the water temp. Maybe it is that I'm not as warm when I get into the water, or the dive tends to be a little longer because it's usually very shallow. Whatever the reason, I was COLD:eek_2: or I wouldn't have come up with plenty of air on such an amazing dive.

 

[charlesml3]

Most likely you got cold from doing multiple dives over several days. Any time you dive like that you're shedding warmth and you never quite get caught up.

I usually start out the week with a farmer-john and switch to a 3mil full after a few days of diving. If I'm REALLY hitting it hard with 4-5 dives per day I'll add a beanie by the 3rd day or so.

-Charles