By Mark 'Crowley' Russell

Night diving can by turns be exhilarating, luminous, beautiful – and panic-inducing. Former dive instructor Mark ‘Crowley’ Russell explains why

Nobody forgets their first night dive. It’s a strange and otherworldly experience, where the ocean comes alive with life forms that you often either don’t see at all during daylight, or which exhibit behaviours so drastically different from their daylight activities that they appear to be divergent species.

Octopuses, often camouflaged and hiding from sight during the day, are active hunters at night. Slow-moving lionfish, a tropical diver’s favourite, do very little of anything during daylight hours, but turn into voracious, fast-moving predators under cover of darkness.

Reef-building corals, as stony as their description while the sun shines, bloom like gardens of ravening flowers at night, the polyps insistently extending their tentacles to grasp at passing sources of nourishment. The largest migration of all animal life happens after sunset, as billions of tiny creatures head towards the surface to feast, before returning to the depths with the rising of the sun.

It’s not just the ocean life that is different, however – divers themselves often exhibit unusual behaviours at night, not only because of what they might see, but also what they can’t see, and don’t see – such as you, the dive buddy they just kicked in the face.

Diving in the dark is entirely analogous to surface-based activities, such as walking through city streets late at night, a very different experience with a very different atmosphere to that of the day. Or the park where you spend your lunchtime enjoying the sunshine that now feels like a dark and dangerous place; the trees that earlier provided shade now looming out of the gloom and shadow…

It was close to Hallowe’en at the time this article was written, hence the metaphor tends towards the baleful, but also lends itself well to the first law of night-diving: always dive a site with which you have more than just a passing familiarity, so at least you have some idea of what to do, or where to go, if something goes wrong and you find yourself disoriented underwater.

First, consider the conditions: I doubt that even the most experienced divers would dive at night in deep water with big currents and low visibility. While night diving is immensely beautiful, it is an additional stressor and small problems can be greatly exacerbated by the dark. A large swell can prevent you from being seen at the surface, so, clear, calm and shallow, is the order of the day, as it were.

It is often worth beginning a night dive while there is still some light in the sky. Assembling and checking your gear will be easier, as will getting into the water, especially if you are shore-diving and have to negotiate a tricky entrance over rocks or through surf.

Even if you begin your descent just after sunset while there is still some light in the sky, the reduced visibility and the physics of light penetration mean it will be virtually pitch-black once you’re a few metres underwater. Before you descend, take a good, long, look at all available light sources. If you are boat-diving then the boat should be using night lights, which will serve as your point of reference.

If there are multiple boats at a dive site, note their relative positions. The boats may move, of course, but keep the light sources in visual range if possible – it’s better to exit onto a boat that is not your own rather than not end up on any boat at all.

When you’re diving from shore, take a reference from what is available – be that the light from a nearby building, or the moon, if it’s visible – and orient yourself to the shore while noting its position. If nothing else, should you become disoriented underwater, you can surface and the light will guide you back to shore.

High-intensity strobes are readily available and inexpensive, and are great for marking shot lines or exit points where there is little available light; it’s always worth having multiple sources of light for additional security. Try to keep reference lights visible as you descend, and, if possible, re-locate them from time to time during the dive – it’s rather reassuring to know that you have a connection to your exit point, and the surface.

It goes without saying that you will be diving with at least one torch, and preferably a backup. The days of the old, warm and soothing glow of the randomly exploding filament bulb are thankfully long gone, but make sure your batteries are charged, and you should still turn your light on (and keep it on) before you get into the water.

While backup lights are not always mandatory, consider the size of the dive group. It’s unlikely that every torch in a group of eight divers is going to fail, but in a group of two, the odds are much shorter. Ideally, every diver will have two lights, but if this is not possible, use good judgment with respect to location, group size and water conditions. If you’re guiding – and especially if you’re a professional diver – then a backup is essential.

As with all diving, buddy separation should be kept to a minimum, but underwater, dive lights can make it easier to locate your dive team at night should you find yourself away from the group. It’s also useful to have individual buddy markers, especially if you’re diving as multiple teams. Some divers use the aforementioned marker strobes attached around their tank valves, but – personally – I find these rather annoying in close proximity. A better solution is coloured Glowsticks; either the chemical variety as favoured by Nineties clubbers, or the more environmentally-friendly LED versions.

Signals inevitably change underwater. There are official versions as taught during club or agency-sanctioned courses, but at the very (very) least, have a pre-dive recap to make sure each member of the team knows how to draw their buddies’ attention, communicate their air-supply level, and signal ‘Okay’ and ‘problem’. Make sure you can identify your buddies by their gear, so that you don’t compromise another diver’s night vision by waving the light in their face when you’re signalling.

As mentioned earlier, night diving is an additional stress factor, and does tend to engender some extra nerves, even among relatively experienced divers. Together with the different visibility characteristics, dive teams often find themselves bunching up together more tightly, meaning extra unwanted contact and fins-in-the-face. It is also often the case that individual divers burn through their air more quickly, so limiting your depth and making air checks more regularly than usual is warranted.

Divers should always endeavour to plan their dives and dive their plan, and this is especially true at night. The darkness lends an unfamiliar aspect to even familiar surroundings, and distance perception is altered. Take note of as many visual references as possible when you’re navigating, and pay attention to depth changes, sand ripples, outstanding rock formations or coral blocks, factoring them in together with your reference light sources when possible.

More dive skills articles

• Scuba diving skills – the importance of visualisation
• Getting comfortable with mask removal, replacement and clearing
• Scuba diving skills: how not to panic
• Speaking Up – voicing your predive worries
• Why refreshers are essential after a break from diving

Delayed surface marker buoys (dSMBs) are essential safety kit during any dive, but especially important at night. Shining your torch inside the inflated tube gives you a very useful signalling aid should you find yourself separated at the surface.

Although there are plenty of extra considerations for diving in the dark, it is immensely satisfying to witness the nocturnal activity of the oceans’ residents. Shutting off your lights for a few moments and manically waving your arms about will cause bioluminescent plankton to spark in the water around you; crabs and shrimps and lobster that you almost never see during the day will be out and about, and any number of species of animal will hunt by the light of your torch – an often thrilling, sometimes moderately terrifying, experience depending on the size and species of fish.

If you ever get the chance to go coral diving with ultraviolet lights, seeing the reef in all its fluorescent glory, as only fish can see it, is a truly remarkable experience.

Above all – don’t panic. Night diving can be a bit more nerve-wracking than daylight diving, but use good judgement and common sense with the tips above; pay attention to what you’re doing and where you’re going, and enjoy it!

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Issue # 32: Expect the Unexpected

DIVE’s latest print magazine is out now, and this winter you need to expect the unexpected. Subscribe from £9.99 so you don’t miss out.

*£9.99 for a digital-only subscription, including all content plus 100+ digital back issues. £22.99 for all digital content plus  4 x art-quality quarterly print magazines for £22.99. Available worldwide (international shipping extra).

The Florida Keys are part of the third largest barrier reef system in the world – and they’ve seen some tough times – but Dutch photographer Raymond Wennekes found an abundance of vibrant and healthy coral, part of decades of work to protect the reefs and their many fantastic shipwrecks.

Read: Scuba diving the Florida Keys – America’s coral archipelago

They really don’t fit the description of mermaids, but there is something about the poise and grace of Mexico’s sea cows that makes you realise why ancient mariners may have made the mistake. Mark ‘Crowley’ Russell tells the tale, accompanied by Valentina Cucchiara’s beautiful images.

Read: Mexico’s Manatees – the Sirens of the Caribbean

Giant cuttlefish spend their whole lives preparing for their final dance – the one time they get to show their true colours and impress potential mates before the colour fade, forever, to black. Artist and activist Francesa Page reports, photographs and illustrates one of the greatest spectacles of the ocean realm.

Read: Battle of the Colours – the mating ritual of giant cuttlefish

The largest of the Canary Islands, Tenerife has a reputation as an inexpensive holiday destination that simply just does not do justice to the grandeur of its underwater volcanic landscape. Jo Caird explores the ancient lava flows, with photographs by Steve Pretty.

Read: Volcanic diving in Tenerife’s dramatic seascape

DIVE’s Big Shot Kaleidoscope underwater photo competition definitely lived up to its name! Check out the spectacularly colourful winning photograph and highly-commended runners-up as they were meant to be seen – on the beautifully glossy art-quality stock of DIVE’s print magazine.

Read: DIVE’s Big Shot Kaleidoscope – the winners!

Also in this issue of DIVE: Mark ‘Crowley’ Russell gives some pointers on what you can expect from night diving, we report on the sperm whale sanctuary of Dominica, an update on the MPB Geographical video awards and another weird creature from DIVE’s Miscellany of Marine Curios.

Read: Night diving – both beautiful and nerve-wracking

More DIVE Magazine previews:

• DIVE Magazine Summer 2023 – To the Limits
• DIVE Magazine Spring 2023 – Thinking Big
• DIVE Magazine Winter 2023 – Life Changing
• DIVE Magazine Autumn 2022 – More to Discover
• DIVE Magazine Summer 2022 – Oceans of Discovery

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The post DIVE Magazine Winter 2023/24 appeared first on DIVE Magazine.

In this extract from his book Planktonia, The Nightly Migration of the Ocean’s Smallest Creatures, Erich Hoyt introduces some of the ocean’s most extraordinary residents

When people hear the word ‘migration’, they often think of humpback whales, Arctic caribou, albatrosses, leatherback sea turtles; animals that move from a feeding area to a breeding area and back, each year.

But the greatest migration on Earth happens twice every night.

The movement is largely vertical and largely performed by plankton, organisms that drift in the ocean’s currents, and micronekton, the small animals that can actively swim against those currents, accompanied by followers and hangers-on, including predatory fishes, squid, octopus and other species, that have acquired a taste for plankton.

The migration starts deep in the waters of the ocean every evening, at sunset. The nighttime migration is composed of miniature creatures of intricate design, a riot of colour, near-transparency or iridescence, and flashing lights.

As they move, the zooplankton – the animals – nibble on phytoplankton – the tiny plants of the plankton – and other tasty morsels in the water and, eventually, some of the zooplankton on each other.

The feeding ends just before dawn when the plankton retreat to the depths of the ocean to hide during the day until, once again, when evening arrives, they migrate back up the water column.

Swimming up and down the water column must be a heroic feat. To move upwards, some plankton wave their arms like dancers or flap their tails; some use a kind of breaststroke with both limbs; others lurch ahead, often with one limb providing the thrust. It’s amazing how fast you can move if you’re hungry, or trying to avoid being someone else’s midnight feast.

It was in 1817 that French zoologist Georges Cuvier became the first to report this nightly vertical migration of plankton, after witnessing it in a lake. In the late 1800s, Austrian geologist Theodor Fuchs took net samples at various depths of the open ocean to show that planktonic crustaceans were moving from deep to surface waters as night came on. But no one realised how prevalent vertical oceanic migrations were.

During World War II, echo sounders on German U-boats in the North Atlantic found that the bottom of the ocean seemed to be moving up every night! After the war, scientists comparing the mass of plankton and micronekton, such as lanternfishes, that they collected at different depths at night and in the day realised that this was a biological phenomenon happening all over the ocean, from polar to tropical waters.

The global vertical migration of plankton and micronekton was so massive, it was read by the echo sounders as the bottom of the ocean.

Over the past decade, as macro photography combined with diving in the open sea at night has grown in popularity, divers have begun sending their images to scientists and asking them to identify the species.

In some cases, at first, the scientists had only general ideas of what they were looking at. In the case of the fishes, drawing on years of plankton research from net samples, and studying the body shapes, fin placements, numbers of fin elements and muscle segments, the scientists could usually identify family and often genus, but sometimes not the species.

The fin shapes and other fragile parts of the planktonic larvae looked very different to the eventual adult forms. In cases like those, identifications have depended on the ability of the diver to collect an individual so that scientists could match the DNA of the larval plankter to the adult.

With the collection of specimens for genetic analysis, a whole new field has started to open. The photographers in Planktonia — some of them part-time scientists, some working with scientists, some citizen scientists — aim to contribute to that literature, working to identify unknown species and capture their behaviour with a camera.

More from our Winter 23 Magazine:

• Life Changing: Todd Thimios’ stunning Norway orca photography
• Accused: a dive instructor’s wrongful prosecution for manslaughter
• Life Returns – coral reef restoration in Mustique
• Review – A Diver’s Guide to the World

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Words and pictures by Lisa Collins

Sitting on the prow of the boat, skimming over the flat, calm, deep blue water, the wind streaming through my hair, the small island of Pulau Siladen, rimmed by white sand beaches and vibrant green lush vegetation comes into view. As we approach, a small ‘welcoming’ party is there waving to us. Immediately, a feeling of being at home in paradise comes over me. I relax totally and know, for the next 10 days, I will be a member of the Siladen Resort & Spa ‘family’ – a very special experience.

Settling into my beach villa, one of several dotted along a long stretch of beach overlooking the ocean towards Manado Tua Volcano, I watch the most amazing sunset. Already, I had been shown the dedicated camera room, classroom and PADI 5* dive centre and had my equipment taken from me to be set up ready for my first dives the next day. All I needed now was a cocktail in the atmospheric bar, followed by a delicious dinner prepared by Siladen’s talented Italian and Indonesian chefs.

Find the answer on DIVE’s Siladen Resort & Spa destination guide

The following morning, after a copious buffet breakfast, I joined the dive boat for my first check dives. Set in the middle of Bunaken National Marine Park, boutique eco-resort Siladen Resort & Spa, is in a perfect location to enjoy 50+ dive sites within a 30-minute boat ride. Collecting my camera from the air-conditioned camera room, fully equipped with charging stations, towels, air gun and freshwater rinse tanks, my dive guide insisted on carrying my camera to the dive boat.

Attention to detail extends to every aspect of the resort, including the dive centre, where safety and safe diving practices are extremely important. Siladen has several dive boats, and each crew gives an orientation at the dive centre and a thorough briefing before each dive.

Bunaken is an 890 square km marine park, established in 1991 in the middle of the Coral Triangle, where the richest and most biodiverse waters on Earth are found. Home to over 390 species of coral and 2000 species of fish, the underwater environment is prime for underwater photographers.

Being close to the equator, both air and sea temperatures remain fairly consistent and comfortable at around 26-30ºC, with just a little rain and generally flat calm seas.

A rich ecosystem with fringing reefs extending out from hundreds of small tropical islands, drops off to dramatic steep walls plunging to thousands of meters. Deepwater currents bring up nutrients that make for an incredible quantity and variety of marine life, and with visibility up to 50m, it makes the most incredibly photogenic underwater landscape.

In Manado Bay, where you board the transfer boat, there is a wealth of muck/critter diving in the black volcanic sand, rivalling the famous Lembeh Strait.

On a full-day dive trip, the amazingly colourful soft corals, very rarely seen around the world now, surround Bangka Island, making for stunning dives full of vibrancy and bright technicolour.

The boat captains are so skilled in dropping you at the perfect time to avoid currents, unless, of course, you choose to do a specific drift dive, so you can take your time exploring the walls and reef tops. With myriad schools of fish, huge green turtles, Napolean wrasse, anemone fish, Bumphead parrotfish and sunlight streaming down through the ocean, both lighting the reefs and making an additional subject for wide-angled photography, producing stunning images. There is even a wreck close by!

But look closer into the reef to spot the tiniest and rarest of critters such as Blue Ringed or Mototi Octopus, varied Pygmy Seahorses, Hairy Gobies, Nudibranchs or Braun’s Pughead Pipefish. There is something for everyone!

With the new addition of a large treehouse, used for Yoga sessions and presentations, Siladen Resort & Spa is the perfect and obvious choice to hold an underwater photography workshop. Being able to teach underwater photography in such a photogenic location, mixed with the luxuriousness of the resort and the excellent service and friendliness of all members of staff, makes my job so enjoyable.

Guests learn a new, or improve an old skill, whilst feeling like they are in paradise. With the wonderful dive conditions, it makes teaching underwater easy. With small group diving, I can go from student to student to help and guide them, whilst our dive guides look for special subjects.

Night dives are also a must in the Manado Bay area where all kinds of weird and wonderful critters come out to feed.

And to finish it all off, on the last off-gassing day, we use the pier in the village surrounded by shallow seagrass and coral heads, often with the local children willing models, to learn how to take split shots.

With a drink in hand, what better way to spend a late afternoon of the workshop, going over the day’s photos, receiving critiques, having questions answered or listening to presentations in the comfortable classroom or tree-house.

Two check dives under my belt, I was raring to go! I couldn’t wait to start my workshop and help my guests capture the amazing underwater world of Bunaken National Marine Park.

About Lisa Collins

With 25 years of experience in underwater photography, and 10 years of experience teaching, Lisa Collins is familiar with most cameras. She has, for the last 2.5 years, been the resident underwater photography instructor at Cathy Church’s Photo Centre in the Cayman Islands. Lisa brings a wealth of knowledge along with her friendly and approachable teaching methods, to help participants get the most out of their underwater photography in one of the best locations in the world.

Lisa’s workshops are limited to 12 participants to allow for individual and personalised teaching. She normally splits the groups into 3 or 4, each with their own dive guide, and alternates diving with each group to allow for plenty of underwater teaching time. Non-underwater photography partners are welcome to join the group and can either come on the same dive boat, or join one of the others going out.

For more information and to reserve a place on the next workshop to be held in March 2024, visit Siladen’s photography workshop page

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Sponsored Feature

Night diving is considered by many dive enthusiasts to be the best way to really see the variety of life that inhabits the reefs, and night diving in Bunaken Marine Park from Siladen Resort & Spa will not disappoint!

We have recently we have been having some fantastic night dives in Bunaken Marine Park, and always recommend that our guests try one early on in their vacation because night dives are among one of the highlights of diving here. 

We have two types of diving within the park, both of which offer a completely different night dive experience. Muck diving can be done on the slopes of the mainland, and at night you can see many types of critters come out, such as the mimic octopus, different frogfish species, many different ghost pipefish, and even the flamboyant cuttlefish. Around the islands, we have wall diving, and at night the walls literally come alive with an (almost) infinite variety of different crabs and crustaceans.

The plethora of amazing creatures is one of the reasons Siladen is so popular with photographers. The resort and its boats are kitted out with underwater photography and camera gear in mind, and the resort also hosts workshops with expert underwater photographer and Inon representative, Lisa Collins.

Recently on one night dive on Bunaken’s famous Lekuan wall our guests were lucky to spot three blue-ringed octopuses hunting over the reef. It is common to sport turtles sleeping in the crevices, and you can sometimes spot reef sharks lurking around. As always, our guides will use their hawk-like eyes to spot even the most camouflaged of critters.

Check out the video below to witness some of the most amazing critters that can be encountered during a Siladen night dive.

To find out more about Bunaken diving from Siladen Resort & Spa’s private island paradise, or to make a reservation, visit www.siladen.com

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