I went diving with Pura Vida in West Palm Beach, Florida, three times in the fall of 2020. One of the coolest dives was the night dive called Black Water diving. You leave around dusk and head out to the Gulf Stream—about 40 minutes. When you arrive the sky is black. You gear up while the boat crew drops light beacons overboard at various depths (15 feet, 25 feet, etc. to about 50 feet) so that when you are in the water you can orient yourself. Your dive / video lights are on the whole time. You are in the water for 60-90 minutes and don’t go deeper than 40 feet or so. It is a drift dive in the Gulf Stream traveling about 4-6 mph but you don’t realize it because it is black and there is nothing to assess movement against.)
What happens? During the day embryonic and larval critters hide in the deep (where it is dark) so they don’t get eaten. At night they come to surface to feed on microscopic, single-celled organisms like phytoplankton. What we get to see are organisms that are not fully developed. (In Hawaii I captured a photo of a fish whose scales had not formed yet so you could see its entire insides!)]. I have some very cool videos of jellyfish with strands of colored lights scrolling across their body but I can’t post videos on this web site. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the photos.
