SCUBA diving at night, in the pitch black Caribbean ocean, is one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever been lucky enough to say I’ve done. Up until the boat ride out to the reef, the only difference I expected from a normal dive, would be the nocturnal animals out cruising the reef. Little did I know, after the sun set below the horizon, the dive briefing talked about the potential to see an octopus, an anemone hunting, lobsters out crawling around, but best of all, the string of pearls. All 8 of us divers were absolutely buzzing and couldn’t wait to see these creatures with our flashlights in the dark. And with that, we walked off the back of the boat, into the pitch black water below, and descended down to the sandy bottom at a shallow depth of 25ft.
Though diving at night is no different than a normal dive, as far as all your checks and setup go, it feels like a completely different world. Your entire visible scope is limited to the cone-shaped beam coming from the borrowed flashlight. Turning your head to look left or right, outside that light, there is nothing. For miles and miles in all directions, nothing but blackness. That is, with the exception of little beams of light, floating off in the distance, indicating another diver exploring the reef. But the light is the only thing you see, not a diver, no fins, no tank, just the reef limited below them. And it took me a few breaths to stay calm and feel comfortable that despite the darkness, this is like any other dive and we were here to have fun!
Without a way to tell who was next you in the blackness, Courtney and I tried to keep any eye on each other best we could. And luckily for me, she spotted an Octopus immediately after we entered the water, cruising along the open sandy bottom. Without much perspective, it looked to be about 12″ in diameter when it spread out all of its tentacles, looking very alien-like, to appear as large as possible. Better yet, it tried to camouflage itself to an almost translucent color to match the tan and white sand underneath it. Of course, making sure we didn’t shine our lights directly onto the octopus as our dive master instructed us to ensure we didn’t scare the creature. Only 5 minutes into the dive and we already saw the animal people hope to see at least once in their life!
Kicking our fins to keep exploring the reef, we swept the lights across the tops of the coral fans in hopes to see something magical. The normal reef fish swam in and out of our beam light, which was still just as exciting as a daytime dive. Spotting a banded butterfly fish in a massive coral drum made for a great photo. The goal is always to spot the small crabs and shrimp tucked into the reef which is exciting day or night. Off in the distance, you could see different groups collecting together to see what someone might have found. Overall, we’d move in the same direction, assuming were following our dive master, but to be honest, I lost all sense of direction on our out-and-back route to explore the dive site.
Midway through our dive, I saw the most incredible sight underwater. Another diver on the boat nudged my arm and was frantically pointing down between a ravine in the reef along a sandy strip. It was another octopus trying to navigate across the reef, most likely scared of the two divers gawking at it below, it deliberately jumped from rock to rock. I dumped air from by BCD to lay on the sandy floor so I could get a better shot of the octopus as it would cross my path. And right in the middle of my camera frame, it jumped to a small rock, the size of a soccer ball, turning from purple to a dark gray to match the rock’s color and then inflated to look like an extension of the rock. Only briefly staying still before pushing off and freely swimming away, like a jelly fish, to the next bit of cover under the reef. In that moment, I felt like a National Geographic photographer, somehow being in the right spot at the right time getting to witness this beautiful octopus mostly going about it’s nightly business as if we weren’t there.
Beaming from ear to ear, the group slowly got back together behind the dive master as we started toward the end of our dive. Along the way, we saw a lobster, without any exaggeration, was at least 3 feet long from tip to tail. And then near our drop point at the start of the dive, Courtney pointed an anemone that was hunting itself. The lights we pointed onto the anemone drew in small fish that the anemone’s arms quickly snatched out of the water column. But that didn’t even come close to how we ended my first night dive experience, with the String of Pearls.
All eight of us simultaneously dumped all our air from our BCDs and took a kneeling position on the ocean floor, followed by the finite action of turning all our flashlights to the off position. Immediately, we were surrounded by a darkness that I’ve never experienced it before. A darkness, not only that you could see, but feel in the water. Slowly, minute by minute, our eyes began to adjust to the darkness. And one by one, little dots began to appear, floating around us in the water column. The dots began to align themselves into vertical strings extending nearly up to the surface. All around us, vertical lines of little white dots coming out of the blackness of the ocean. But what are these beautiful “Strings of Pearls?”
The pearls, are not actually little lights, but small, microscopic crustaceans called Ostracods. These little creatures excrete balls of bioluminescence mucus to attract the females of their species in a mating ritual. And for last twenty minutes of our dive, we sat on the sand in complete awe of the magic happening all around us. It looked as if we were in a spaceship passing through the galaxy of stars. A truly immersive experience that I’ve never come close before this moment. The only downside, is that it was so dark, that there was no way to capture these faintly luminous creatures with my camera, so it’ll only exist in a memory and these words!
Two octopuses, a massive lobster, reef fish, anemone, and the string of pearls. The night dive with Native Sons was everything I could have ever hoped it’d be. And seemingly everyone else on the boat too, as we were all ecstatic, talking about what we saw, back and forth, sharing photos and stories. It was the most excitement I’ve ever seen on a boat after a dive. Plus the added effect of coming off the boat in the middle of the night, back into town, like a group of Navy Seals felt pretty awesome too!
Hi there, my name is Zachary Kenney and I’m an adventure filmmaker & photographer. My passion is to tell stories that will hopefully motivate you to go live a more adventurous life. Whether that is to experience the view from the summit of a mountain, or wandering through a new town on a road trip. Currently based in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
