TWOSOPHIES
A sea urchin, backlit and photographed with a slow shutter to capture its delicate motion
PHOTO: DAN BOLT
Sophie Rennie reflects on her formative night dives
I had my first UK night diving experience in a quarry in darkest Devon, where there is no natural light, and therefore lots of planning is required to ensure the safe conclusion of the event. We started by doing a day dive in the quarry, noting that we would be using the same entry and exit, which would be helpfully lit with cyalume sticks [ or glow sticks, as preferred by Sophie H ].
The instructors laid a trail of these cyalume sticks to give us a route to an old helicopter and back along a wall to the
roadway and back up to a walk-out exit. It was a really good idea and meant that when we actually dived, we not only had an idea of where we were going and what we were likely to see. You see, we had covered this all during daylight hours, so we could look at the differences between diving in the daylight and then in complete darkness( except for our torches and the cyalume marker points).
It was an excellent way to kick off a UK night, and certainly those who had never done a night dive before were put at ease by the prior planning, which made it all a very enjoyable experience! Prior planning is so important( not that it isn’ t for any dive), but in the dark, everything is harder! This experience was certainly miles better than my first ever night dive as a complete beginner, when it was me and a few sharks waiting for the others to jump into quite choppy waters, then being unable to equalise my ears and having to do the swim of shame back to the dive boat. Just me and a few( as I later found out) completely harmless sharks! They say National Instructors can walk on water- well, young Sophie did exactly that! �
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Do you have a question about dive training, kit or safety for the Two Sophies to answer? Email SCUBA Editor Simon Rogerson, simon @ scubamagazine. co. uk
Firework anemones in a Scottish sea loch, photographed to show their fluorescence
PHOTO: DAN BOLT