Night dives

My first night dive was the Manta Ray dive in Kona, HI. Awesome! but hardly a typical experience.

I didn't night dive again until this weekend. We did a twilight dive to make sure our (new) lights and such were in good order, then floated on the surface while the guys on shore set off their fireworks (highly recommended -- lovely, comfortable, mosquito-free), then did a night dive after. It was in an unexciting quarry (we practice there a lot) with vis of about 15 feet. Not much to see but a few fish sleeping under ledges and a bunch of plankton.

And it was so cool! I volunteered to be the one farthest from the wall because the plankton were so enchanting I didn't need any other distraction. Then there were the fish fry, out of hiding and out there trying to eat plankton as big as the little fishie heads. Navigation was a breeze as we know the underwater features well and had decent light from a gibbous moon should we have needed the help.

So what are your best and worst experiences with night dives? Any great tips to pass along? I could get addicted to these things...

My worst experience in a night dive was the first dive, the checkout dive. Visibility was almost 3 feet. Y couldn't see almost anything. The water was not cold but I was feeling uncomfortable.
Suddenly everything came to light. Visibility changed to +20 feet. Lots of fish and squids.
Squids trying to suck my light. Wonderful.
We entered by the beach. When we emerged, we were something like 100 meters from the shore, so we swam face up looking the stars in the dark sky. Really beautiful.
I love night dives. Going up and swimming back to the boat looking at the black sky with lots of stars is overwhelming.
Lastly I've got a compass, so, going back to the boat at the end of the dive following a reverse course avoids swimming in the surface enjoying the sky.
My best experience at night, all of them.

During the day I love kelp, but I found out that I do not like kelp diving at night, not yet anyway.

My best night dive was a few friday's ago at shaws cove in Laguna Beach CA. We saw tons of animals. Lots of small rays, a 2-3' ray, a few lobsters, a 3 foot shark, a small octopus swimming with us and many assorted fish. I have dove the canyons there a few times during the day, but at night was the best.

We also did the Manta dive on Kona, fantastic!

Biologic...just curious what quarry you were at.

I have done several quarry night dives (not lucky enough to do any warm water ones yet) and find them amazing. We've taken some newbies out during the say then do the same dive at night. They are amazed at the difference. The worst night dive was descending on an overcast night and coming up in a downpour. Normally wouldn't bother me except I was diving in a dry suit and got soaked taking it off.

scuba_frog:

Biologic...just curious what quarry you were at.

I have done several quarry night dives (not lucky enough to do any warm water ones yet) and find them amazing. We've taken some newbies out during the say then do the same dive at night. They are amazed at the difference. The worst night dive was descending on an overcast night and coming up in a downpour. Normally wouldn't bother me except I was diving in a dry suit and got soaked taking it off.

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This was at the Dive Stop in New Melle, MO. It's just south of I-70 not far from St. Louis. We've also been quarry diving at Quail Run/Jones Quarry in Rolla, MO -- but not at night. Yet. We live in NE Missouri, so if there's somewhere closer that's good that we're missing, I'd love to know about it!

My worst experience was trying to do a skills dive in the dark, and discovering on ascent that I couldn't read my gauge in the dark because the numbers were too small for my old eyes, even when backlit. Doing a free ascent in the dark when you're a new diver and you can't tell where up is (because there's no light gradient in the water) is not a recipe for fun.

I didn't night dive for a long time after that, but I've gotten very fond of them since then. A couple of the best were on Paradise Reef in Cozumel, where it was incredible the amount of life we found on the dark rocks. We also recently did a beautiful night dive at Alberto's Anchorage in the Channel Islands. We had sea lions chasing flying fish, and found THREE octopus.

BioLogic:

This was at the Dive Stop in New Melle, MO. It's just south of I-70 not far from St. Louis. We've also been quarry diving at Quail Run/Jones Quarry in Rolla, MO -- but not at night. Yet. We live in NE Missouri, so if there's somewhere closer that's good that we're missing, I'd love to know about it!

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Ahhhh....I just saw that you were from Midwest just wasn't sure where. I'm near Chicago so I'm no real help to you regarding locations.

OUr most interesting night dive was this winter. We were on vacation in Bonaire. We were doing a boat dive with the group. I went down and looked up to my wife and there was a "puddle" in the lens of her light cannon. I swam back to her and grabbed the light and held it lens down to keep the water away from the bulb and ballast. She of course tried to take it back and then tip it up. I tried to signl "light broken" but it was stil on and she tried to take it back and then tip it up and look inside! Sign language just broke down at that point. I switched the light off (without her knowledge) . At this point she stopped struggling and went for her backup. We finished the dive with the light stowed in my waistband lense down. Afterwards we dried it out and it still worked! However there are stll stories of the "light robbing night dive".

I love night dives! I enjoy them more than day dives actually so do about a third of my dives at night these days. Some of my favourite experiences are:

-seeing a cuttlefish eat an octopus. Couldn't believe how fast the cuttlefish moved.
-a few night dives I've done from shore on two wrecks. They are in very shallow water (about 4m) but you can spend a long time swimming around the wrecks and it is quite spooky at night
-seeing a 2m stingray approach me in the dark and another time when a seal decided to play chicken with me - scared the crap out of me!
-any time I see an octopus - I love these and they are really active at night
-any dive at a place called Sorrento Pier. Never dived it during the day as there is a ferry that shows up a lot and would be dangerous to be in the water so we get in at night. There is a strong current so the viz is pretty clear. As it is rarely dived it is beautiful underneath, everything is intact and there are many fish I tend to only see when diving off a boat further out into the bay. Just incredible dives there.

Worst night dives include:
-my first night dive. It was on a night diving course very soon after I started diving. My buddy swum off on me so I got left alone. Was rough underneath and the viz was bad. I surfaced after doing a few 360 turns (as this was the lost buddy procedure agreed to). Neither my buddy, nor my instructor surfaced, so I swum around on the surface looking for lights and eventually found them again after around five minutes. I got bad cramps soon after this and was again abandoned by the group (I could not swim because of my leg cramps). Just a big CF of a dive.
-a shore dive were we had zero viz and it was very rough underneath so I got pushed into a rock wall where people were fishing by the surge. They yelled at me and my buddy a lot We did around 45mins in the end out of just determination to get a dive in (was my buddy's 100th dive ) and the exit was over a rocky shore so I had to swim with my hands over my face so I wouldn't keep swimming into rocks. I was so seasick by the end of the dive...