I did a pair of dives late afternoon and evening yesterday with my friends Andrew and Jim. The end of summer is a great time to do a dusk/night dive, because the earlier sunsets allow you to do it at a reasonable hour. The water and air are usually at the most comfortable temperatures too.

We picked Back Beach in Rockport for the dive site. You can park at the beach, the entry is easy, and there’s a lot to see at night.

We were in the water for the first dive around five. Visibility near shore was pretty bad, but got better further out.There was still enough light to see, but the dive light brought out the colors of the scenery. There were a lot of baby lobsters around, plus a ton of cunner. Cunner are pretty plentiful around here, but they’re hard to photograph because they move fast and are easily spooked. I finally got a decent picture of one this dive:

Cunner

On the way back in, Andrew spotted a baby lobster protecting a huge lobster claw.

Little Lobster, big claw

We made it back into shore, and got set up for the second dive. I set up a propane lantern by the entrance to use as a marker, and for this dive, we chose to head in the direction of the town center.

I was worried at first, as we seemed to be crossing an endless patch of barren sand, but then we started seeing stuff. Jim spotted a flounder camouflaged on the gravel bottom. Then we came upon the squid. Several of them in different colors. They weren’t particularly happy to see us, but they didn’t fly from us either. At one point, Andrew was even able to touch one. The pictures don’t show it, but at one point, either Jim or Andrew put their light behind a squid, and you could see that it was actually translucent.

On the way back, we saw some pollock, and a striped bass flitted by. It was one of the best dives I’ve had in recent memory.