Today's Dive (Updated with Pics Post #34)

Agree.

What's your deepest dive, Dan?

 

It's not so bad anymore. You get used to working with the lights off. Lol. But I see where your coming from.

110'. With a 3 min deco stop at 10'. 23 minute bottom time.
Diving in a reservoir with a valve at 85'. Previous diver working I valve dropped a flange and maxed out his bottom time and couldn't go deeper than he was so went in for retrieval. Didn't go straight down and drifted a 10' off mark. With 1-2' visibility wasnt easy to find. So I did circle searches till I found it.
I've done other cool dives but that was the deepest.

 

Thats not bad at all. You probably just use regular air. I was hoping to have a Trimix convo with you about going 200-300ft. Bet you guys razzed the crap out of the other guy lol

 

Sorry, no working dives deeper than that. Dives that deep are way above my pay scale. Lol. I've been with the same small company for the past 5 years. Mainly work on navy and ships here in the harbor. Been on a few other cool jobs. Worked at the pt Loma waste water treatment plant (Sewer). Extremely fun dive. 0' viz. couldn't see my hand on my face port. A 1,000,000 gallon scale down tanker pool. Nimbus dam, Folsom dam. Dam retrofit. Surf fence, California Mexico border fence installation. Just to name a few.
I spent the past 3 years in the office running operations and finally decided to get back in the field so now I get wet again.
Oh and I have only been on one recreational dive and that was in a boring lake.

 

And to answer your question, sorry. Yes it was an air dive. Us navy standard air table.

 

That's deeper than I care to go. I've been down to about 63ish. My father and mother ran a dive operation in the Bahamas for awhile as dive masters, btw. I just became certified last September. I am actually going to go out to a river (goes down to 20ish) next weekend and practice my skills a little bit.

I am surprised you were able to stay down that deep for so long without a longer DC stop. Was that your only dive that day?

 

How did you come upon this job then? I'd assume they'd at least want well qualified rec divers to recruit?

 

I was on a 110 schedule. With my limited bottom time and ascending at 30' a min. With a stop at 10' for 3 min having a total decompression of ~ 6min 40 sec.
That was my only dive that day and my repet group was only an H, so I could have made more dives with just a more limited bottom time.
That's awesome. I wish I had more time for recreation.

I was going down the wrong path and knew I needed to do something with my life. I saw this opportunity to go to school and be a diver and I ran with it. I loved the water so why not. My class started with 25 people and only 6 graduated. So it's not for everyone and its pretty intense physical and mental training.
I graduated with my diver medical technician cert and a cert in ems. It was a fun experience and I absolutely love what I do.

 

There is alot of burnout in that industry. I know alot of professional divers even here in montana. One guy was working a turbine in a damn at 150ft and said he turned to see a lake trout the size of a small school bus. He finished his weld, surfaced, and quit. Has never been diving again.

 

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