Leatherback Bay Night Dive
Dive site
Trinidad holds one of the world's most significant leatherback turtle nesting aggregations, and the bay diving during nesting season from March to August is unlike anything in the Caribbean. At night, the water column fills with jellyfish that leatherbacks feed on during their offshore intervals between nesting cycles — and on a good night you can watch 2-metre leatherbacks ghosting past at open-water depth. The reef shallows host night-active species: octopus hunting, sleeping parrotfish in their mucus cocoons, and Caribbean spiny lobster roaming the sand. Even outside peak nesting season the bay delivers exceptional night diving.
Conditions
Depth
4 to 20 m
Open water and up
Current
Variable
Can pick up on the edge
Visibility
6 to 12 m
Clearest in the calm season
Water
23 to 29°C
Tropical wetsuit
Month by month
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water (°C) | 23 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 26 | 27 | 27 | 26 | 26 | 24 | 23 |
| Vis (m) | 8 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
| Current | Gentle | Gentle | Gentle | calm | calm | calm | calm | calm | calm | Gentle | Gentle | Gentle |
Your chances of seeing each animal
Caribbean reef octopus
Photo: Jean-Paul Cassez · CC BY-NC
Sometimes
About 1 in 3 dives
Caribbean spiny lobster
Photo: terence zahner · CC BY-NC
Sometimes
About 1 in 3 dives
Stoplight parrotfish
Photo: Kevin Bryant · CC BY-NC-SA
Sometimes
About 1 in 3 dives
Leatherback sea turtle
Rare
Now and then
Moon jellyfish
Rare
Now and then
Field journal
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