Night Dive

Last night, we went on a night dive with our friends Jen & Vince, Justin & Anna, Rob and Vajai. We met everyone at the port at 6:30pm, just as it was starting to get dark outside.






We went out to a wreck called Talata, and enjoyed the sunset until it was dark enough to jump in the water.










Once the sun had completely gone down and it was pitch black outside, we jumped in the water with our flashlights. It was so cool being down there surrounded by dark water, with objects and animals appearing only when you shined your light on them. I tried taking some pictures, which I'll include on here, but videos ended up working a lot better.




Vajai explained to us ahead of time that the hawksbill turtles around here will wedge themselves around the wreck at night to keep from moving around while they sleep. We ended up seeing lots of turtles, and we got to touch their shells. It was so cool...










We also saw a few crabs and lobsters, some small shrimp, a pretty big barracuda, and a huge puffer fish!





Here is Vajai's hand above the puffer, so you can see how big he was



At one point, we all formed a circle on the sandy bottom and turned off our flashlights. As we waved our arms around in front of us, it caused bioluminescence of the plankton around us. As Wikipedia.org describes it, bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism as the result of a chemical reaction during which chemical energy is converted to light energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioluminescence. Definitely check out this website, it has a great picture of bioluminescence in the waves in Carlsbad, CA). So as we waved our arms around, the plankton around us glowed a flourescent blue color. It couldn't be captured on video or camera, but it was beautiful in person!

Can't wait to go on another night dive sometime soon...it was awesome!