I had about 150 dives under my belt before I ever did my first night dive (I was not an advanced diver by any means but definitely quite comfortable in the water).

It was a shore dive where you kicked out about 30m and then just dropped down at a buoy line, couldn’t be easier. I’d done that dive plenty of times in the day, you just follow the rope down to a concrete filled bucket, easy peasy.

Holy shit. As I started to drop and the darkness pooled around me my breathing got REAL quick. Got down to the bottom and I recognized that I was freaking out some so I just chilled for a minute looking around and getting used to my light beam being my entire vision space.

After about two minutes I got thrilled/excited/amazed instead of panicky, and after that it’s never been an issue, but it took a deliberate, conscious effort to stow away my lizard brain and force myself to realize that I was not in existential danger.

I LOVE night diving, I’m a night owl anyways so it’s all the things I love about the peace and quiet of the night, AND the peace and quiet of diving. It’s bliss.

But yeah, that first drop into the blackness… Woo. I’ll always remember it just as vividly as my first open water boat dive.

Nope. These numbers are reported in USD after converting.

Yes, they are actually that huge.