24. The divers and the dive lights

When they introduced the recreational diving, the dive light wasn't a common equipment.

Those who know more about the history of scuba diving see the changes in equipments and practices during the last few decades. There were inventions like the single-hose two-stage diving regulators, the buoyancy control devices, and the mixed gas diving isn't a special feature anymore.

If you watch an episode of the Sea Hunt series from the 50's, you can recognize the divers used some unusual equipments. The classic oval dive masks or the double-hose regulators worked well but nowadays you can see them in museums or old diving movies. And those divers didn't have any dive lights.

It's not a big surprise. There were waterproof lights, but they were expensive and bulky, and their light weren't too bright. Sometimes you can see underwater flares in the vintage movies but they were anything but practical. You can't aim with them to a specific spot, and certainly their light was dazzling.

In those years only a handful of people became recreational divers. Every single dive was a new adventure, they didn't need special challenges to feel the thrill of diving. There weren't plenty of divers who wanted to try night, wreck or cave diving so they didn't need special equipments. They had exciting experiences in the shallows so they could dive without a dive light.

Even the non professional underwater photographers or filmmakers worked without an external light source, but the viewers were still stunned by their black and white photos and movies. So most of the divers didn't want an underwater light. Later they invented strobes and lights for scuba divers, which were simple and robust but they weren't really powerful.

The divers were simply used to the typical blue and gray colors of the underwater world in the depth. It's a fact: the diving can be fun without a dive light. A lot of divers still rarely bring dive lights with themselves. When we dive near a shallow coral reef where we can see some of the colors and plenty of fish we can enjoy the underwater adventure.

Many of the divers don't realize the difference until they take a dive light during daytime. Even those coral reefs can be more colorful and spectacular. When they invented the smaller, user friendly dive lights, they become popular. With these the recreational divers can participate in night dives or explore wrecks.

Now we have the tiny but powerful waterproof LED dive flashlights which should be the part of every divers' equipment. First of all they become handy day and night, and they can be used to display a visual distress signal. The more powerful waterproof lights are good for underwater photography and videography. The dive lights are indispensable in caves or wrecks.

We started manufacturing the multifunctional, rechargeable Spark Action Light 7F dive light which fits in the pocket of a BCD to fill the need of the divers. Certainly many of the divers carry only the necessary equipments, but the majority buy a dive light too. And sometimes they have special needs, so we designed video lights, UV lights which you can find in the Spark Lights range.

In the world of recreational diving the new dive equipments slowly replaced the old ones, and new practices became the standard. In the future the diving with a dive light can be the typical even during daytime. It's worth choosing a reliable, small and powerful dive light which can be a good buddy for many years and let us explore the real colors of underwater world.

2018.11.27