Watchlords

"If you're not a little nervous, then there might be something wrong with you," Jeff Milisen, the divemaster, says as our dive boat cruises out from the Honokohau Harbor under the cover of darkness, toward our dive site about five miles off the coast of Hawaii's Big Island. "This is meant to get you out of your comfort zone, and we have self-preservation mechanisms for a reason. It's okay to be apprehensive."

And I am. Three other divers and I are about to perform a "blackwater dive," where we'll be attached to a 60 ft. tether and drift above 4,000 ft. of pitch-black water.


https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/aquat ... per-ph500m

This is fucking stupid. The only reason to go out after dark is to drive to a 7-11 for a pack of Marlboros. Or booze.

Ummm...that is a night dive, not a black water dive.

A black water dive is blacked out due to heavy volumes of material suspended in the water. You certainly can't see a watch on your wrist. In most cases its done as part of a search for bodies, etc, in rivers and the like. You have to search by feel because you can't see anything. Black water diving is a head-fuck and not something you would choose to do for fun.

If you are watching critters swimming around its not what is normally termed 'black water'. But then this is Hodinkee...so, whatever.

Only two things have caused me to experience panic when diving. Once when I swam over a reef it dropped off 1200m over the edge of the continental shelf, and on a black water dive. The monkey brain in me went nuts both times.