Night Diving

Last night I got on a boat at dusk with 7 other divers, we sped out into the Ocean ,and as we sat on the top deck having a briefing there was the most amazing sunset in the background.
Everybody was pretty nervous as the sun disappeared in the horizon and darkness creeped up on us. We all got kitted up with the usual equipment plus torches and jumped into the water. At this point my stomach is full of butterflies and I feel a real mixture of excitement and fear.

We deflate our Buoyancy Devices and down we go into the darkness!
It was soooooooo strange. It's a very eerie and creepie sensation because it's pitch black everywhere apart from the beam where you illuminate your torch, so you feel like a big morey eel could be breathing on your cheek and you wouldn't even know!!
It was amazing though because you can't really see the other divers unless you shine your light on them, you can only see their torch light so it's like being in space. There are other groups of divers down there too so when you see them coming it looks like you're in a dark forest and there's an alien spaceship landing ahead. Actually alien is a perfect word to describe this experience.

Apart from watching where you are going (so you don't bump into any scorpion fish or jelly's), you need to be careful that when you cross another group of diver you don;t accidently join onto them and loose your group! It's sooo easily done and gets very confussing.
One of the coolest things was when we all sat on the bottom and turned our torches off, it's pitch black but if you wave your hands in the water you see hundreds of sparks, it's the phosphorescence from the plankton. It's really beautifull, like fireworks.

When we popped up back at the surface and where floating waiting for the boat to pick us up, I led back and saw the most stunning sky I have ever seen! It was crowded with stars, a brilliant feeling of adventure and I'm sure that this won't be my last night dive.

Sam