Scuba tanks on. Fins in hand we descend the steps into the sea. Behind me, over my shoulder the last rays of the setting sun play across the sea.

It would be easy to be nervous but it wouldn’t help. I force my mind to calm and I still my normally rampant imagination.

The mantra ‘just concentrate on the technical aspects of the dive’ running in my head on a loop.

The sea is still warm.

Fins on. Final checks. Torches on. This is it. We sink into the inky dark sea. As we fall the last of the twilight fades and full dark engulfs us, surrounds us.

Pitch black.

I can see nothing outside the cone of my torch beam. A beam that back on land seemed blinding yet down here struggles to illuminate more than a few meters ahead.

Other than my own breathing, it is utterly silent. It is utterly lightness. I have never experienced black like it. (Yes Marcel it is even blacker than you!).

So dark.

50 feet down with only three tiny cones of light you can sense the immensity of the sea all around you. It is endless in all directions, you just hang like motes in a void.

I don’t think I have ever felt more vulnerable.

Without the torches there would be no frame of reference to tell you which way was up or down. It baffles your senses. In the torch beams dark shadows distort what you do see. It is disorienting to say the least.

Beyond the cones of light, nothing.

It is here that you have to find a way to block out that fear of the dark. You have to turn your imagination off. You can’t even begin to think about what lurks beyond the weak glimmer of your torch. If you let the thoughts in you are in trouble. You have to stay calm and just let the experience wash over you, through you.

Imagination could trigger panic and here that would mean real trouble. So you slow your breathing. Slowing your breathing in turn calms you and the shadows in your head retreat.

The darkness all around you remains but you are in control and the mantra ‘just concentrate on the technical aspects of the dive’ keeps you focused. I run through my equipment checks, I check my air and depth. The familiar driving out the unknown.

The torch beam illuminates coral and sleeping fish.

Squid flash into view pulsating with light.

Lion fish hunt their magnificent manes bristling. Deadly.

On every coral tiny shrimp and crabs.

The giant shells of conch zoom across the sand.

At night the reef is alive and full of colour. Polyps waving in the current.

We stick close together reluctant to be to far apart. Anything over a few meters and we would be lost to each other completely swallowed by the dark. So instinctively we three stick close together.

Then out of the pitch black a shape can dimly be seen at the very extent of our combined torch beams. Amphitrite. The mermaid I met on my first ever dive.

At night she is ghostly, a spectre at the bottom of the sea. Where in day light she sits in stained glass light at night she is transformed into a pale spirit.

A memorial to all those lost at sea.

We begin heading back in the direction we know the shore lies. Slowly moving up the mini-wall and through the coral gardens.

Suddenly out of the dark a huge silver shape moving like a torpedo straight at us. At the last-minute it veers away and disappears into the dark.

Heart racing I slow my breathing. I know that shape. But I know it only to be a sluggish and quiescent thing. Not this fast-moving creature.

It is back swimming with us fascinated by our torch beams. A huge tarpon. A King Fish. Maybe five and a half to six foot long.

During the day the big silver fish sleep or move with slow languid motions. At night it is transformed into a sleek purposeful hunter.

Gleeming.

Stunning, speed and power. Never more a mirror than now reflecting our torch beams.

Blazing.

It circles us a few times and content that we are not its prey it slips into the dark. Gone. We carry on. But as we swim something gently touches my shoulder. Rests on my shoulder.

I freeze. Ready to scream, to thrash, to dash for the surface. A heartbeat from a total melt down. If I was ever going to panic it’s now.

I can see both of my buddies in front of me.

What the hell is touching me?

But I sense no threat. Only a calm presence. A big presence.

Total self-control.

With a steel will I keeping my breathing slow and even. I turn my head slowly and find myself eye to eye with the tarpon. His face literally next to mine, the only thing separating our eyes is the glass of my mask. It’s body running down my back next to my tank.

It is resting on me.

As much in shock and relief, as amused by the cheeky fish I bust out laughing. Big gouts of bubbles streaming from my regulator as I giggle. Not hysteria but genuine laughter.

With the slightest twitch my friend pushes away from me and swims parallel to me using my torch beam to look for its prey! It stays alongside me for a minute and then once again it is gone. Hunting in the dark.

Its been 50 minutes in the black. We surface and swim the short distance back to the dockside the twinkling lights of Sunset House guiding us home, the sound of music, laughter and chatter welcoming back into our world. Back to our reality.

Night diving, stunning and an abject lesson in self-control!

Would I do it again?

Yep.