First night dive tonight.

[Can't swim]

My first ocean dive was at night, in Bonaire. I was excited and scared to death at the same time. I also prefer night diving over day diving.
I hope your first experience is as wonderful as mine was.
Have yourself a blast and dive safe.

 

[htn123]

1. Don't shine the light to your buddy eyes. Sure will mess up his night vision in a heart beat.

2. When signal to each other, shine the light onto your hand. Your buddy can't see your OK sign without light shining to it .

3. As someone mentioned, turn off all light and wave your hands like crazy, you might see some bio-luminescent which is really cool.

4. And please don't shine the big light on the little sleeping fish. They need rest just like we do. Shine somewhere near it and enjoy the view. You might make it a meal for the other big fish if you light it up.

5. When I want my buddy to see me and my signals, I put my light above my head and shine down me including my hand so he sees what I am doing. Not into my own eyes of course

And the biggest thing is relax and take it really slow and enjoy the view. It will be worth it.

 

[Protist]

Thank-you

 

[akirawut]

Don't turn the light off when checking for the bio-lum., just put it against your chest.

One issue, if you are using a traditional bulb not LED, is that they most commonly burn out when powering on or off.

On top of that the mechanical switch is your next likely point of failure, so no reason to stress that while you need it to be working.

 

[k374]

Night dives are exciting yes, I agree but it's quite disorienting and requires a lot more of you as a diver than a regular daylight dive. I have done only 2 so far but look forward to doing some more albeit I still have reservations about jumping into a pitch black ocean :nope: Hope you have a great DIVE!

 

[Doc]

Don't turn the light off when checking for the bio-lum., just put it against your chest.....

And the best reason of all... if you croak-out, the light (always tethered to you) will mark your carcass.

Makes more sense the more you think about it.

 

[TSandM]

Be prepared for a degree of disorientation, if you do a direct ascent in the dark. A lot of the time, we're largely unaware of how much we unconsciously use light gradients for orientation, and that information simply isn't available in the dark. I saw one of the best divers I know get disoriented and yoyo wildly on ascent, on a night dive in Cozumel. Watch your gauges and believe them.

Ascents, if you are not following bottom contours, are very challenging in the dark. Use your buddies as visual references, and night ascents are one of the places where deploying an SMB can be enormously helpful, both for defining vertical and for calibrating depth.

Enjoy your dive. I love night diving (and didn't like it for a long time, until I worked through some of the orientation issues).

 

[tracydr]

Be prepared for a degree of disorientation, if you do a direct ascent in the dark. A lot of the time, we're largely unaware of how much we unconsciously use light gradients for orientation, and that information simply isn't available in the dark. I saw one of the best divers I know get disoriented and yoyo wildly on ascent, on a night dive in Cozumel. Watch your gauges and believe them.

Ascents, if you are not following bottom contours, are very challenging in the dark. Use your buddies as visual references, and night ascents are one of the places where deploying an SMB can be enormously helpful, both for defining vertical and for calibrating depth.

Enjoy your dive. I love night diving (and didn't like it for a long time, until I worked through some of the orientation issues).

You may not know this but are some people more dependent on visual cues than others? I've noticed you mentioned frequently in your blog that you had a lot of problems with this on low vis dives in your blog. I've seen it in other divers as well. Just curious because without ever having experienced it on a dive before it's hard to figure out why I don't. I have terrible night vision and get disoriented with the lights off in the house but I've never had that experience on a dive, even when I could barely make out my hand while diving on a freshwater dam.
Just been curious about this for a long time. Perhaps some people are dependent on different cues than others for orientation? I watch my gauges and compass when the vis is poor.

 

[Sas]

Enjoy your night dive! I much prefer night dives to day dives myself

As others have suggested, turn your lights off at some stage, and let your eyes adjust. Wave your arms around and hopefully you'll get biolumenescence.

Also don't bother doing the whole holding your hand up to your light to make signals unless you need anything more than 'OK' or 'attention' (which are most of my communications). To make an OK wave your torch in a circle and for attention wave it back and forth slowly. For emergency, wave it back and forth quickly. I find light signals way less hassle than doing the fingers in front of a light thing.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

Surface lights. Chemical glow sticks. LED tank marker lights. Geesh! You guys really go all out for your night dives.

Know how to distinguish your buddy based on gear (unique fin markings or color?) and how he/she moves through the water. Different primary lights have distinguishing beams. Take advantage of this info. I can figure out who's who underwater in my circle of dive buddies just by the way they kick.

Have y'all worked out your night dive signals yet? Saspotato did an excellent job of covering the important ones. I actually prefer night dives because I can keep track of my buddy better. We use our lights to do a great deal of active and passive communication. I see my buddy's light not too far away from my light. The beam is moving in a controlled manner. Her breathing cadence is normal. She's doing OK. If I want to point out a critter to her, I shake my light across her beam (get her attention), draw a line to what I'm looking at, and then circle it with my light. She acknowledges that she sees it by circling the critter with her light. If there are multiple small critters in one location, I'll flash a number of fingers corresponding to the number of critters, indicate the sign for "small," and then circle the location with my light.

Have fun!