Written 6-26-07:

I got a chance to do a real, true night dive at the quarry the other night. I had been trying to plan one for a few weeks but it fell through a couple times but FINALLY, this past Friday night: it was NIGHT DIVE time.

Still wearing the drysuit when I dive. As long as that thermocline remains where it's at and it's not 100 degrees outside with 100% humidity, I'll suffer a little bit of being too hot before I get in the water so I can remain comfortable while I'm IN the water.

I tried to make sure I had everything together but of course, always forget one something or another. This time it was the drysuit hose. It wasn't attached to the reg set so I had to trot on back up to the shop and find a drysuit hose.

Got that straight. And then we were suited up and into the water. Kevin has one of those super lights (not just a little underwater flashlight) and he jumped in first and it was just cool seeing the light underwater.

I was concerned on how a night dive was going to affect my trim and buoyancy because I'd have very little visual reference but I think I did pretty dang good.

We headed off to the rock crusher and swam in and around it and then when we left that and got on a line, he indicated that I should take hold of the line (between thumb and finger, not just grabbing it and pulling myself on it), use it as a guide and he turned off the light. I turned off mine. We went from the crusher to the bus without lights AND THAT was the coolest part. Awesome feeling. It was so cool. To me, that was the best part. No lights, just finning along.

Anyway. We looked around the bus, went to the plane, glass bottom boat, went into the deeper portion where he pointed out the white crayfish on the bottom, also saw the Brim beds! That was neat.

The dive lasted about 55 minutes. I think that's the longest time I've stayed under so far. I did well on my breathing too. Started out at 3100/3200 and ended with 1100. That's pretty good.

But diving in the dark? Yeah. I liked that a lot.

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