Night diving and "the neighbors"

  The participants; Mike, Dom and I.  The place; Kingman Wash.  The adventure; Dom's first night dive.  We arrived at just after 9 in the p.m., geared up and got in.  I took the lead as Mike pulled the lighted flag and tailed us with Dom taking the middle.  We were in for just over an hour and dropped to 33 feet.  The awesome thing about night diving is this; The same site turns into something completely different in the dark!  While the change over in fish life from day to night doesn't necessarily differ out here, their behaviors do.  Because they're in a somewhat catatonic state (resting), It's so much easier to get really close to them.  Dom hadn't experienced this before and she thought it was really very cool!   

  She'd also never experienced the sometimes creepy feeling of being able to see only what's caught in the beam of a dive light!  As the dive continued, Mike's light went dead and he saw nothing except for the shine of our beams and the glow sticks hanging on the backs of our tanks, Dom's red, mine green.  He said they'd cast an eerie and almost otherworldly glow.  I showed Dom several Blue gill and juvenile Catfish lazing about on the muddy bottom.  Two large Carp swam slowly just at the edges of our flashlights beams, causing shadowy, ghost like glimpses and staying just beyond us.  We turned our lights off a few times so Dom could have the experience of total and complete darkness beneath the surface.  She loved it!

  As I brought us back to the shallows, I found a spot just about 8 feet deep.  I wanted to show her the moon and stars.  I pointed up and once more, we shut off our lights.  The night was calm and cloudless.  The visibility underwater was great, there was no wind.  The night sky shined in all its starry, moonlit glory and it was beautiful!  The desert was calm and quiet but as we geared down my brother gave out a long and high pitched howl just to see if we had "neighbors".  We did and the short, shrill yips answered in close proximity.  The Coyotes were all around us!  It was as if they filled the wash, staying (much like the Carp on the dive) ethereal and mysterious.  Then Dom caught eye shine in her flashlight's beam. One was closer and on the shore, about fifty feet away.  She pointed him out. He sat there,  watching us for awhile and then sauntered slowly off into the desert darkness.  What an incredible night this was.