What a Great Dive!! oh! it was BEAUTIFUL!!
It was so dark....the lights of the city always make the western horizon glow when you're at the lake, but there was no moon, and underwater, with the lights off, it was C
ompletely Black.
Twas a shore dive from a beach of mixed sand and rocks, a bit silty on the bottom, but not so bad as to grab at your feet as you walk into the water.
The water was warm - mid 80's I'd say, dropping no lower than the mid 70's (I think) even at 48'.
All over the bottom were fish, in a variety of kinds and sizes, just sitting there, asleep. They were no more than a foot apart from each other, laying in the divets and hollows, or just right in the open. They were so still, we'd swim right up to them, study them - face to face - they were so docile they wouldn't move but a little twitch or two unless you actually tried to touch them (and with them sitting so still, you just couldn't help but try at least a few times to touch one! LOL!) and if you did..they'd take off like tiny rockets.
I came upon a group of 4" - 5" Bluegill, all sitting together right in the Open, their little Dorsal fins all sticking up, motionless and asleep. They were so still that they almost didn't look real. They looked like some kind of alien flower-bed, all planted in a neat little cluster.
We saw some great big carp cruising along the bottom...swimming lazily, and showing little or no concern for the divers with their flashlights, no matter how close we got to them.
There were Bass and Striper, in a variety of sizes, some swimming solo, others in groups.
Then there was the huge school of some kind of silver fish, most about 4" long, give or take a bit. Have you ever watched moths cluster and swarm around a streetlight on a summer night? That's what it looked like, only Much Larger! There were dozens of them, darting to and fro, every direction...it seemed we were right in the middle of them. They were zooming by so fast, reflecting our lights, then every so often we'd get startled as one would swim right into us, bumping into an arm, leg, or even my forhead right above my mask! It was amazing! It made me think of the lights flashing by on the "Space Mountain" roller coaster at Disneyland when I was a kid! ....and I thought, "Wow! Disneyland has NOTHIN' that compares to this!!"
We moved along very slowly, careful not to kick up any silt, watching the fish, and enjoying the night.
We stayed down for an hour and six minutes. It was so beautiful.
The weather was perfect, calm water, just the tinest bit of a breeze. When we surfaced we just laid in the water and watched the stars for a while before returning to the beach.
....and I tell ya....these are the things that life is all about.
night diving! TONIGHT! 
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