Of my many different diving experiences here in Ireland, the most profound would have to be depth. My previous South Australian dives averaged 15 meters, now off the coast of Kerry, it’s more like 35.

With these depths come the loss of light, the loss of colour and the urgency of time. Below 30m, especially with turbid upper layers, the gloom becomes palpable, mysterious, teasing and inviting.

At 40 meters, and with lights, it is like night diving where the torchlight brings the underwater world to life in a video roll of incident light. There is security in that little bit of light but if you are game to turn off all lights, to hang out over deep water away from structures, and to let night vision do its thing, something magic happens.

I find it difficult to put into words that feeling of floating in a void of shadows and shapes. I seem to be aware of the bottom below and the structures around me but they have no substance, no threat, they are simply ‘there’. When the torchlight of another diver penetrates that void, the sharp relief of substance is both jarring and beautiful at the same time.

It’s been a long time since I really got to ‘feel’, diving. The magic of the gloom has brought that feeling back.