Black Water Diving in Bali: The Night Dive With No Bottom

EcoProDivers

Oct 2

7 min read

You roll off the boat at night into open water, and there is nothing below you. No reef, no sand, no wall. Only the dark, and a line of lights hanging down into it.

Black water diving has nothing in common with an ordinary night dive. It is strange, and a little unsettling at first. Then the first creature drifts into your light, something that looks like it swam in from another planet, and the dark stops mattering. You stop watching the water below you and start wondering what you are actually looking at.

We offer black water diving in Bali from BREEZE - North Bali Ocean Resort, on the north coast between Tejakula and Kubu. Here is how it works at BREEZE, and how to tell if you are ready for it.

Quick facts

Where: open water off North Bali, about 15 minutes by boat from BREEZE
Water below you: at least 200 to 300 meters
Dive depth: about 30 meters maximum
Group: four divers at most, always with a guide
Level: confident divers with very good buoyancy
Best moon: new or half moon
Meet: 8 pm at the dive center
Dive time: max 60 minutes

Black water diving vs a normal night dive

	Black water diving	A normal night dive
Where	Open water, over 200+ meters of ocean	A fixed reef or wall
Below you	Nothing but water	The reef itself
How you move	Hold position near the lights and drift	Follow the reef's contour
What you look for	Whatever drifts into your light	Animals your guide finds for you
First feeling	Unpredictable, a bit disorienting	Familiar, reef-based

On a normal night dive you follow a reef. Your torch goes into cracks and under ledges, and your guide points out the crabs and nudibranchs. There is always something solid beside you.

On a black water dive there is nothing solid anywhere. The boat takes you past the point where the reef drops away, and you dive in the top 30 meters of very deep, open water. You do not go looking for animals. You stay near the lights and let the animals come to you.

Every night, huge numbers of small organisms rise from the deep ocean toward the surface to feed. Scientists call it diel vertical migration, and it is thought to be the largest animal migration on Earth, repeating every single night, everywhere in the ocean. A black water dive drops you straight into the middle of it.

How black water diving works at BREEZE in North Bali

You meet at the dive center at 8 pm. You set up your equipment, the guide runs the dive briefing.

The boat ride takes about 15 minutes, far enough to clear the reef. Once you are there, the crew drops a line about 30 meters long, attached to a buoy, with a light every 5 meters. Then you wait, roughly 15 minutes, so the small animals have time to find the lights.

Then you back-roll into the water.

You do not swim up and down the line. You hold position around its outer edge, where the glow starts to fade, and watch what drifts in. Nobody on the boat knows what you are going to see, including your guide.

The lights hang from a buoy, so if there is a current, the whole group drifts with it. The boat follows the buoy and picks everyone up at the end of the dive.

Is black water diving scary?

It can be, for the first few minutes. You are in open water at night, with nothing below you and nothing to hold on to. Your mind keeps looking for a bottom that is not there.

Two things help. The lights stay with you for the whole dive, so you always know where the group is. And you are never alone: there is always a guide in the water, with four divers at most.

Then the first animal shows up in your light, and the dark stops mattering.

Meet the regulars: what actually shows up in the light

Ask anyone who has done a few black water dives what they saw, and the honest answer is usually that they do not know. Most of what drifts by is unidentifiable even to the experts. That unpredictability is exactly why divers keep coming back to it, and it is worth naming a few of the regulars here instead of leaving the list vague:

Larval eels (leptocephali): paper-thin, ribbon-shaped, and almost see-through. Nothing like the adult eels hiding in a reef by day.
Larval flounder: swim upright as babies, with one eye slowly moving across the head as they mature.
Siphonophores: long, stringy relatives of jellyfish that can stretch for several meters and sometimes glow.
Comb jellies (ctenophores): small and transparent, but their moving cilia split a torch beam into color as they pulse past.
Juvenile squid and octopus: often no bigger than a fingernail, jetting through the light.
Paper nautilus: rare and prized. A pelagic octopus in which the female builds a delicate, paper-thin shell.

None of these show up on a reef dive, day or night. And because everything is drifting with the current rather than living in a fixed spot, no two black water dives are ever quite the same.

The guide's job is different out here, too. On a reef, the guide finds the critters and shows them to you. Out here the animals are too small and too scattered for that, so the guide's real job is to keep the group together, close to the line, and to bring everyone up as one.

If you like small subjects, bring a camera. Black water is very good for macro photo and video, and it produces shots you cannot get on a reef. It is also fine to dive without one; plenty of divers just hang back and take it in.

If macro diving is why you come to BREEZE, this is one of the dives you should not skip.

Who can go black water diving?

At BREEZE there is no strict minimum dive count, but you do need an open water certification and a night dive under your belt. What matters more is how you dive.

That bar is lower than many black water operators set. Some dive shops elsewhere in Southeast Asia ask for an Advanced Open Water certification, 50 logged dives, and a night diving specialty before they will take a diver out, and a few destinations run their own dedicated black water certification course. BREEZE's approach, deciding by conversation and buoyancy rather than by a certificate count, makes the dive more reachable for a confident open water diver.

You need very good buoyancy, and you need to feel at home on a blue water dive during the day, with no bottom in sight. Out here, the lights are your only reference. The line itself is hard to see, and there is nothing to tell you how deep you are. Maximum depth is about 30 meters, and there may be a current.

So ask yourself: have you done a daytime dive in blue water with no bottom in sight? If yes, you already know how the start of a black water dive feels, only darker. If not, do one or two of those first, or talk to the BREEZE team and let them help you decide.

One practical tip: check your dive computer more often than you normally would. With no reef or bottom to judge by, it is easy to drift deeper without noticing. The Divers Alert Network names this as one of the main risks of blackwater diving in its own article on the subject.

When to go: moon and sea

We want it as dark as possible, so a new moon is the best time. A half moon works fine too. A full moon is not recommended.

We only run these dives when conditions are good and the sea is calm. If you are interested, tell our staff early in your stay so we can plan one around the right night.

Frequently asked questions

Is black water diving safe? The main risk is losing track of your depth, since there is no reef or bottom to judge by. At BREEZE the dive stays within about 30 meters depending on your certification, the group is never more than four divers with a guide, everyone stays close to the lit line, and the boat follows the buoy for the whole dive.

Do I need to be an advanced diver for black water diving? No, but if you are an open water diver you do need at least one regular night dive with us first. In practice you need very good buoyancy and need to feel at home in blue water with no bottom in sight. If you are not sure, tell the team how many dives you have and what kind, and they will give you an honest answer.

How deep is a black water dive, and how long does it last? You stay in the top 30 meters, over water that is roughly 300 meters deep below you. The evening starts at 8 pm at the dive center, and the dive itself lasts a maximum of 60 minutes.

When is the best time for black water diving in Bali? Around the new moon, when the nights are darkest. A half moon is fine, but we avoid a full moon. The sea needs to be calm too.

Is blackwater diving the same as black water diving? Yes. Some write it as one word, some as two. The dive itself is the same: open water, at night, over very deep water, with lights to draw the animals in.

Book a black water dive at BREEZE

BREEZE is known for its macro diving, and black water is macro diving taken out into the open ocean. Have a look at BREEZE - North Bali Ocean Resort for the dive packages, or contact us and ask when the next new moon dive is.

While you are there, take a look at the coral restoration project on our house reef.