Less than people expect, your light cuts a wide cone, the sea is calmer at night, the marine life is calmer too. Most students rate their first night dive as the best dive of the trip.

SSI Open Water. Age 12+.

Backup light is mandatory, you signal your buddy, switch to backup, both ascend. Drilled multiple times during the course.

Octopus hunting, sleeping parrotfish, lobsters out of cracks, plankton lighting up around your hand (bioluminescence on lucky nights), nudibranchs galore. The reef wakes up.

Past 18:30 local time it's pitch black underwater. Your dive light is your whole world, the buddy beside you is a silhouette unless they shine their light at you.

December–March, calmest seas + best visibility. Avoid full-moon week if you want plankton bloom.