Last night marked one of the most amazing experiences (so far) that I have had diving! On the final night of my Night Diving certification, and in preparing for my final dives I was, understandably, a bit nervous. The night was to consist of Night Navigation, essentially for dive one of the evening my dive buddy and I were to lead a tour out along Whytecliff towards the day marker, and at approximately half air, turn around and return back to the start, including the safety stop, with 500+ PSI in the tank. We almost made it... lol. We led the tour out, apparently swimming faster than normal, and covering a lot of ground, saw a ton of great stuff and even crossed over the point. In one area we even dropped below 70 feet (I later found out this was a no no as my buddy was not advanced certified yet...ooops). The swim back was good, but we went with the rock instead of over at one point which would have had me lead the group parallel to the beach and not towards it. Fortunately Dennis was there and corrected my trajectory pointing us back on track (Navigation has never been my strong suit). After our safety stop, and a nice controlled ascent the final 12 feet to the surface I finished with just under 400 PSI, not too bad, but not where I wanted to be.
Dive 2 on the night and #3 for the Night Diving course was where my life was changed forever... at least in the realm of diving. We were on our tour of Whytecliff, happily following Dennis out through the very dark water and just enjoying a leisurely swim when Dennis' light locked onto something on the ground I could not quite place. Following tight to his right side with my dive buddy slightly back and left of me and our DM just back of that we started a very controlled circling descent down to see what Dennis had locked in on. To my surprise, and apparently Dennis', the DM's and everyone else that has heard the story, there in the middle of the sandy bottom, moving at a leisurely pace, perhaps hunting, was a medium sized Pacific Octopus! Rarely if ever seen out of their dens at the best of times and almost never seen out in the open especially in local waters, this was an opportunity of a lifetime! Now unfortunately, due to this being a course, no one had their cameras and Dennis did not have his video camera as he was teaching, so no pictures or video footage to show but I can tell you it was SUPER cool!
After swimming with the octopus for a while and watching it chase fish, we carried on for a bit more of a tour and then headed back in for our final skill of the night, and the course.... the dreaded BLACK OUT!! You see I had heard about this skill in the book and in class, the idea being to mimic and light failure. Can you sit in the dark for a full 3 minutes, just sitting / laying there, and then in the dark, locate your back-up light, activate it and complete the dive with nothing but the back-up? When it came to the impending moment, Dennis swung around to face us, and killed his light. Following suit, we one by one shut off ours and with nothing but the phosphorescent and our tank lights we sat for 3 minutes... or nearly 3 minutes...lol. I was closest to Dennis, and after a minute or two your eyes really adjust to the low light and darkness and you can start to make out everything. At about this point Dennis got my attention and signaled to me, not totally understanding what he was looking for me to do, but knowing pretty much the only thing left to do was locate and use the back-up, I found mine and turned it on. Seeing the light, my dive buddy found and turned on his, followed by the DM and then Dennis. It wasn't until after the dive that Dennis let me know he was signaling for me to let him know what my air was at...lol, it was not time to turn on the lights....lol. With lights on, Dennis started a leisurely swim towards shore showing us some of the interesting items in the shallow water and before I knew it, my depth was 4 feet and I could stand and take my fins off. BEST WAY TO FINISH DIVES EVER!..lol.
Up to the vehicles for one last time, strip off the gear, load up and head home, a certified Night Diver.... yeah me!
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