When most people think of scuba diving in the Bahamas, the first thing that comes to mind is definitely not pitch black water and being unable to see two inches in front of your face. However when you jump in the water at 9:00 at night, it is a totally different world than during the day. There are many different types of animals and animal behaviors, and it is a completely different experience overall.
This was my first night dive and I was SO excited for it! As soon as I jumped in, I knew it was going to be a memorable experience. As I started to descend, I felt a little bit disoriented at first. Being surrounded by blackness made it a little difficult to know which way was up and which way was down. As soon as I flicked on my dive light, I was good to go. I descended to a maximum depth of 36 feet in the beautiful 79 degree Fahrenheit Caribbean water. My dive lasted 42 minutes, and during that time, I experienced some pretty amazing things. I apologize for the quality of my pictures, but it is difficult for a camera to focus with no light. As soon as I turned on my dive light, I attracted a lot of plankton.
Plankton
attracted to my dive light
Having
all of this plankton swarm around me was really a wild and very different
experience in and of itself. As I approached the reef, one of the first
things I saw was a few Sea Urchins and a Spiny Caribbean Lobster! This
was so cool because during the day, these animals are hidden in rocks and coral,
but by SCUBA diving at night, you get to witness all of them out and about.
Spiny
Caribbean lobster and sea urchins out and about at night!
One
of the fish that I learned about on this dive is called a scorpionfish. They are in the family Scorpaenidae, which also includes the lionfish and the stonefish. The beautifully colored fins on this rather ugly fish carry
very potent venom. If stung, a person will immediately feel intense pain
and have extreme swelling of the area that was stung. Within minutes, a
person could experience blood pressure changes, delirium, fainting, heart rate
changes, nausea, shortness of breath and even seizures or paralysis (just to
name a few symptoms). I saw three scorpion fish on this dive, thankfully, all from
a safe distance!
Scorpion fish during the night dive
Now
just because we were diving at night, definitely does not mean that the Aquarium’s dive team wasn’t still hard at work collecting fish!
Catching
fish at night
One
of the types of fish that we were targeting at night was parrotfish. Parrotfish have a very unique biological feature that made them much easier for
us to catch at night. When it gets dark out, parrotfish will form a
cocoon made of mucus around their body and this adaptation will typically help
them in avoiding predation at night. When they are in
this cocoon, they don’t move around very much which made it much easier for us
to catch these very speedy fish.
Parrotfish
in their white mucus cocoon
At
the end of the dive, Captain John even accidentally brought up a
starfish. Just to give you an idea of how bizarre some of the animals
were that we saw on this dive, here is a picture of the starfish that came up
attached to Captain John’s leg!
Sea star
attached to Captain John’s leg
Overall,
the night dive (as well as the entire expedition) was an unforgettable
experience to say the very least. I enjoyed every minute of every day on
the R/V Coral Reef II and look forward to joining the Aquarium again in the
future!
-- Luigi
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