Image by adege from Pixabay modified by me using GIMP photo editing software.
floating right in front of me,
suspended in perpetuity.
Reflections from the full moon's light,
guiding my way to the surface.
flecked between my fingers,
streaming from every digit.
The light lingered, then faded,
emptying everything but wonder!
if I could catch a diamond
when dancing in the rain,
to spin, arms outstretched
and catch those stars again.
Many years ago, in 2010, I went on my first liveaboard diving trip for three days in the Similan Islands in Thailand soon after getting my PADI open water diver qualification.
It was on this trip that I made my first ever night dive and was privileged to witness one of the often overlooked wonders of the natural world. Below is an account of this remarkable scuba dive that was instrumental in me becoming serious about diving and travelling the world to dive.
As the sun crept towards the horizon we kitted up fastening regulators to tanks, donning wetsuits and weight belts before sitting down for the dive briefing. This is when the dive guides started to get cryptic, they explained that we would be doing a very special sunset dive. Entering the water as the sun went down we would see the reef around us and it would start to get black as night fell when we were down at around eighteen meters.
I remember feeling a little apprehensive (this was my 9th sea dive) as they described the importance of staying in a line of buddy pairs, using torches to highlight the reef often and not shining lights in each other's faces. They described an odd procedure at the end of the dive while we made the 5-meter three minute safety stop.
Apparently, everyone was to watch the dive guide and when she made a signal, to press their dive torch against their chest with one hand and wave the other in front of their face. I didn't know what to make of this but as the sun slipped closer to the sea, with my heart thumping in my chest, we took the plunge.
We drifted down into a gloomy world of crackling snaps and the reassuring rumble of the bubbles from our regulators. The reef was a different place in the twilight; all monotone shapes and pensive fish staring out from dim coral contours. Darkness fell as we descended and everyone turned on their torches.
It is hard to describe how this dive felt as a beginner. I have done more than twenty night dives to date (out of over 200 dives) and none of them felt as heart-stopping as this one.
There was a slight current, the reef passing by below as I struggled to control my depth. I flashed the torch across the reef and to the side in fits and starts, trying to keep my orientation while everyone else focused their lights on points of interest. Around halfway through the dive I lost this fear, the nervousness just drained out of me as I focused on following the other diver’s torches with mine. We saw a Moray Eel swimming free from its cave, hunting around the mounds of coral.
Near the end of the dive, one of the other divers kept making the octopus signal at me and circling a patch of coral with their torch. This ocean alien was so well camouflaged that I spent a minute trying to pick it out. Just as my friend was getting bored I spotted its strange eyes staring at me, and then the tentacles and head coalesced from the gloom.
Image by sandrine RONGÈRE from Pixabay
As we ascended another of my fellow divers, startled me from below as he gestured me to look closely at his hand where a Durban dancing Shrimp was carefully cleaning micro-organisms from his fingers. All of the divers on this trip were well in advance of me and went out of their way to show me these incredible finds. He deposited his hitcher on the reef and we stopped to hang at 5 meters for our safety stop.
The dive guide signaled us all to chest our torches and as the light faded to blackness I experienced one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.
Silver-blue flecks traced stars through the black emptiness, comet tails of bioluminescence erupting in the inky reef-scape. As my eyes adjusted, I could dimly make out the tips of my fingers at the apex of the closest tracers. I waved my hand in a figure of eight, then an R, marvelling at the vague shimmering symbols. Just before we ascended, I realized that I could see smudgy flares of luminescence as fish flitted by, painting silver smudges in the night, before the light bled out into the blackness. Describing this from memory is hard and words are failing me now, I still dream about this dive as it was one of the most profound experiences of my adult life. I had been suffering severe depression prior to my backpacking trip to Thailand and this experience was instrumental in reigniting my reverence for nature and reminding me of the transcendental beauty in even the smallest organisms.
This amazing phenomenon is caused by microscopic plankton called Dinoflagellates which glow when disturbed. Kayakers can often see this glow, but it is nothing compared to the impression you get 6-8 meters below the surface of the ocean. The memory of this event still lingers in my subconscious, and I was inspired to write the poem Diamond Drop Sea after that dive while lying on the sundeck of the boat staring up at the sky and musing on the stars in the deep beneath.
Thanks for reading 🙂🌿
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