A primary concern for blackwater divers is rough seas. With so much light power deployed, the captain could easily keep tabs on the lighted line and each diver’s position. Surprisingly, we were only vaguely aware that we were moving at all-the untethered divers, the line, the ball and the boat, all subjected to the same flow rate, calmly sailed along as a unit. In Kona, like most destinations, we were carried by currents that were at times so strong we traveled five miles during an hour’s dive. Steve’s glowing mother ship worked like a charm, allowing us to swim freely with confidence while searching for scattered bits of larval life designed not to be found. Two hours later, what looked like an erector set on a rope was carefully wound into a plastic tub. Steve added a suitcase full of underwater lights, adjustable clamps and tie-wraps. Al had prearranged with our boat captain to have a rope, a large orange float and a ten-foot metal chain to stabilize the line, ready and waiting. One of the first things we did after unpacking was trim a 40-foot line with lights staged at ten-foot intervals. We were there at the invitation of Al Rector, who had caught the blackwater diving bug and had access to a boat that could accommodate our nightly multi-dive schedule. Riding the crest, Anna and I took a Covid test in early June and joined Steven Kovacs, a talented blackwater photographer from Palm Beach, for a week of night drifting off Kona, where it all began. Branching out we began visiting overseas concessions that have taken up the challenge of providing safe access to a new frontier (see our 2020 post about our blackwater diving in Anilao). What a pity.īlackwater diving picked up its game in 2014 when two boat charters began scheduling open water night drifts off Palm Beach, Florida-less than a half-day’s drive from our front door! After a few fledgling dives it became apparent that diving in calm night seas with an experienced operator at the helm-whether tethered or untethered-turned out to be far less dangerous than perceived. Making our lack of vision even more nettling, we were well aware that blackwater charters had been safely operating out of Kona on the Big Island for some time. Thinking back now some 25 years later, I find it disappointing that even with a boat and an able crew at hand, the idea of drifting at night like Chris was never considered. L-R: Surgeon fish flying gurnard butterflyfish Settling fishes encountered in Bimini ca. The tiny translucent butterflyfish, quarter-sized surgeonfish, and the prize of the catch, a blunt headed flying gurnard, cooperated nicely bouncing around in a daze while the more hydrodynamic captives fled in a flash, the instant the lid was unscrewed. Happy with the haul, we headed to the shallows where we took individual hostages to the bottom and set them free with the hope of taking their pictures. In no time at all a dozen strange little fishes buzzed inside our bucket. Within minutes of connecting the alligator clips to the battery, a flurry of larvae and settling fishes fluttered around the floating lights. Along with three friends from the mainland we headed for the edge of the Gulf Stream at sunset equipped with lights encased in Styrofoam, two long-handled pool nets, an assortment of buckets, dusty jelly jars from the cottage cupboard and a 12-volt car battery to power the enterprise. The venture took place during our three years in Bimini where we had access to a boat and an oceanside cottage. In the mid-1990s Anna and I attempted a less courageous workaround for photographing larval fish for the first edition of Reef Fish Behavior. There just seemed to be too many unknowns. Unfortunately, envisioning Chris drifting in open ocean at night somewhere off the coast of Kona, tempered my enthusiasm. More than captivating, the magical image gracing his 1984 classic Within a Rainbowed Sea, proved transformative, opening my mind to the previously unimaginable idea of searching for pelagic animals in open ocean at night. It has been almost four decades since Chris Newbert’s portrait of a long-armed oceanic octopus took my breath away.
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