If you’re an avid scuba diver, I’m sure you have come across the term: night diving. But what about blackwater diving? Or fluo diving? That is what we are here to explore today - the alternative and new ways to dive at night which discover another side of an already peculiar place.

Night diving

To touch base on what a night dive actually is, it is diving at sunset and into the night. Divers generally do this along reefs and with their own torches.

Night diving is a sought-after experience as it reveals underwater life that you don’t commonly see during the day. Night dives reveal all the nocturnal creatures that come out to hunt at night. These consist of lobsters, crabs, eels, some kinds of sharks, rays, octopuses, sea horses and sea stars. Additionally, there are also unique events that only take place at night, such as coral spawning.

Night diving can essentially take place anywhere, preferably with minimal current. As long as there are safety protocols in place, you’re sweet to go. Some of the best places we’ve found for night dives occur in the macro famous Bonaire, in the Caribbean, the Lembeh straight where you can witness mating mandarin fish, the stunning Coco Island of Costa Rica, and of course, the feeding mantas in the Socorro Islands of Mexico, as well as in Kona, Hawaii.

Blackwater diving

What is blackwater diving?

Firstly, blackwater diving focuses on a whole other universe of organisms. The majority of creatures that you will meet will be between 2 to 6 centimetres long and are mostly planktonic, consisting of the early stages of fish life, nautiluses, jellyfish, sea worms, squids, and salps.

Going on a blackwater dive is actually going to witness the world’s largest migration. This is called the diurnal vertical migration - where thousands of planktonic animals of the deep ascend to feed and breed in the safety of the darkness. It’s weird, wonderful, and other-worldly.

How do blackwater dives take place?

Instead of swimming along the bottom with your own torch, blackwater diving uses high-powered light sources which mimic moonlight to attract life. These are dropped in the water for about 15 to 20 minutes before divers enter. Once in the water, your only reference is dim lighting, however as your eyes adjust to the darkness, you’ll be able to see a new realm of strange critters.

There are three types of blackwater dives; open ocean, near reef, and bonfire dives. Open ocean takes place in deep water, and divers are usually tethered to a boat or descent line. Near reef usually occurs along a reef drop-off, without descent lines, and uses the wall as a reference. Bonfire dives occur on a bottom surface and use light to attract creatures from the reef and the shallower water column.

The best places in the world for blackwater dives are off the coast of Florida, Pico Island in the Azores, Portugal, Palau and Lembeh in Indonesia, the Bay Islands in Honduras, Tahiti, and Kona, Hawaii.

Fluo or glow diving

Whilst night dives allow you to see nocturnal creatures of the reef, and blackwater dives attract the planktonic world of the deep, fluo diving can be described as these combined, but witnessed through a different lens.

Fluo, also known as glow diving, allows you to see the underwater realm in neon pinks, greens, purples, and oranges. It uses UV or Blue light torches to allow us to see another dimension of nocturnal life. Fluo is short for fluorescence which is a phenomenon that occurs when certain materials absorb short-wavelength light and re-emit it as longer-wavelength light. Some organisms in the sea have the ability to do this, such as corals, anemones, nudibranchs, shrimps, eels, and fire worms.

Why does this phenomenon exist?

Scientists aren’t really sure, but they speculate it is a form of protection and photosynthesis in corals and anemones, whilst with fish, colour is known to be a form of communication, and thus their ability to fluoresce might be a form of communication in a wavelength that we don’t see with the naked human eye.

Any healthy reef would be an incredible place to try out this new type of diving, however, the best-known spots for it currently are Lembeh and Wakatobi in Indonesia, the Maldives, the Philippines, the Grand Cayman, and the Caribbean.

So grab your gear and don’t wait to explore an alien-like underwater world!

Written by Kayli Wouters

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