Deep Sea Fishing, The Final Frontier

Deep sea fishing
This Ctenophore, called a sea walnut, is one of the weird and beautiful creatures best viewed during a black water dive.

Deep Sea Fishing. Deep, dark, still unknown sea, full of mesmerizing creatures still being discovered within its vastness. Scientists have known for decades that life exists in the tiniest of forms, in the smallest of spaces. Divers are discovering right in front of their eyes that the tiny flecks just at the tip of their masks are actually living organisms. Now many seek to unlock their mysteries and get magnified underwater photographs to get that closer look at these barely noticed creatures.

The best way to do this is to go on a black water dive. It can be as mysterious as it sounds, out in the dark, after the sun has set, before the moon has risen, the oceans are black. In this blackness, a mass migration occurs in which the larval and juvenile life stages of many of the typical coral reef dwelling Deep Sea Fishing and creatures come up to the surface from the deep to feed on the smaller plankton that lives above. It is quite clever using the cover of darkness to feed, as the young fish and creatures do each night to mask their delicate bodies that are the perfect size for a larger predator’s mouth.

Deep sea fishing divers are able to take a boat at least 3 miles off of the Palm Beach coast, waiting for the sun to set in order to jump in with more than 2,500 lumens of light with hopes of getting glimpses into the lives of those rarely seen. So many creatures sparkle and show off every color in the spectrum just below the surface of the sea at night, from yellow and green phytoplankton to phronima, isopods, and pteropods. Moon jellyfish harbor smaller fish and crustaceans that seek protection or a rest on the pink-white gelatinous caps. Hundreds of arrow squid follow you just over your shoulder, hunting the smaller prey illuminated by a diver’s light. As they dart in and out of your light, twisting and twirling, spinning and dodging, feeding and hiding, you can only hope your trigger finger was fast enough and your camera was focused. In the darkness, through your camera lens, you can watch the rows of colors that undulate across the perimeter of the comb jellyfish.

And to think, all of this on the tiniest of scales. Magnified and brought to light by each diver’s lights and camera rigs. To learn more about black water dives, go to www.puravidadivers.com or call us at 561-840-8750. Pura Vida Divers hosts black water dives several times a month during the summer, so if you are intrigued and ready for something a little different and a little dark, call today.