Not long ago I asked a relatively new diver whether she was going to do a night dive that was part of a trip. Her response was: I’ve never done one will I see anything? My response was probably a bit snappy: yes assuming you turn on your torch and keep your eyes open. I went on to explain that since we were diving in the ocean and on a reef she would normally see the “night shift” of critters. Many of them would be hunting for their dinner while the creatures she had seen on the reef during the day might be hanging out in holes in the reef and trying to sleep all in hopes of not being eaten.
An octopus waiting for prey to swim by
She asked who were the critters that we might see that we’re hunting for their dinner. I said if we were lucky we might find some octopus feeding.
An octopus hanging on to the crab he would be dining on
She asked what else might she see. I said well we might see a nudibranch or two.
A nudibranch crawling on the reef
She asked will we see anything weird? I said well it depends on what you mean by weird but since we were in Southeast Asia I said well we might see a bobbit worm.
A bobbit worm feeding at night
On that night dive we did see a bobbit worm which the dive guide would periodically push a morsel of food to. Our newer diver was startled the first time the jaws of the bobbit worm snapped shut and the worm pulled his prey into his hole in the sand.
When we eventually returned to the surface our newer diver said can we do that again? My response was well perhaps tomorrow. Will the boat need to save a space for you? The answer was: Of course…..
I had been diving for nearly 20 years before I ever came across black water diving. When I first heard that to do the dive we would be out in very deep water at night (perhaps over 1000 feet deep) with video lights on a string providing light to the creatures that might swim up for the depths, I had a few concerns. Sure I had done quite a few “shark” dives over the years, but I had always done those dives in the daylight so I could at least see them coming. I talked to the dive leader and heard that in all the black water dives they had done to that point they had not been visited by any sharks. Then I asked about what I might see in the night. I then heard about the great vertical migration. The short version is that billions of larval size creatures swim up from the depths each night to feed at the surface, only to return to the depths before daytime so they do not become some predator’s breakfast.
Like much in diving good buoyancy control was essential because unlike some places that do tethered black water dives we would be swimming fee without being tethered to the boat. Now controlling buoyancy plus controlling light for taking pictures sounded like quite a challenge. One of the tips I did hear and pay attention to was to listen to my ears. If I was having to clear that meant i was going deeper. So I thought that what I would do is have one eye on the string of lights and the pumpkin at the top, and have one eye focused on what was available to see.
Some of the creatures are surprisingly long
My first black water dive, I swam around a ton and my focus light had a very wide beam. I thought I was swimming in a snow storm. The closest I got to getting a usable image was a picture of the ink from a squid that had jetted away from me.
Three years went by and I returned with the same camera rig except this time instead of a wide angle focus light I used one with a very narrow beam. Was it hard taking picture of the creatures I found on my second black water dive? In a word: yes. But I was more confident of what I would do and had a good bit more success in capturing some of the critters that had come up from the depths. Now buoyancy was still a big concern because even with having the string of lights as a reference point it would have been very easy to drop below the last light. What I can say is that black water diving is an advanced skill and if not tethered it is really a dive that should be saved until the diver has excellent buoyancy control skills.
