Offshore Diver

There I Was...

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First time on an Oil Rig - Jay Moskowitz February 2008

Trio of stories here from a long time diver currently working on the East Coast USA. 200802
     It was June 1979; I was one year out of college and a graduate of the Diver's Training Academy of Florida, this was my first trip to the Gulf and I was both scared and excited as the chopper landed on the pad on front of Taylor diving and salvage, one of the largest diving contracting firms.
     My gear that consisted of two duffel bags and a hard wooden box I put together for my Kirby 10. I was just a tender and didn't think I wasn't going to get my feet wet, but I wanted to be prepared. I loaded my gear into the back of the chopper and we took off for an oil rig and production platform about 150 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico where most of the oil exploration is done in the United States.  Almost one and a half hours in the air and there was the rig. Wow. We were touching down; after only seeing the photos in text books I was really here, I was actually on the landing pad of an oilrig. I reported to dive master and received 10 pairs gloves, a safety hat, a safety harness, and life jacket.
     I was assigned a diver, Carl Brock, and for the rest of the day just followed him around. He was a nice guy, basically showed me around the diving section and introduced me as the new scrub….
     The next day started at 04:00 making sure my diver and his equipment was ready by 06:00, the air line was blown and clean and connected to his hat. By 17:30 I was this side of dead and still had to clean his gear… I thought, shit… this is not going to be easy!!!
By the third week I had taken one fall and went through several pairs of gloves. At one point my diver became ill a cold or virus and the dive supervisor asked if I wanted to get wet, hell yeah, I said before I had any idea what I was going to do…
     I soon found out. I was helping in replacing a gasket in 160 feet. All I said was no problem. The next day a tender was suiting me up and it was very different for me after doing it all myself. One of the other divers said, “Don't get used to it so quick, Scub.” After checking my air and communications and double checking my harness and taking a few pictures, I was ready, willing and able to go.
     I still remember stepping into the basket and being lifted up and over the side and being lowered down to the water and looking down, it was a long way down to the water and looking up at the rig, it looked like a giant building. My heart was pumping like a jack hammer as my feet and the rest of me went under, I was prepared with two adjustable spud wenches, a short handled hammer, the replacement gasket, and my big chief knife all clipped to the D rings of my new bailout harness, and the Kirby 17 I was wearing felt great. I remember talking a lot until the supervisor told me to shut the hell up…
     When I finally touched bottom the water was pretty murky and I had the feel my way around, all I could see was light shadows, I found pipeline and flange section by falling over it. I advised topside that I found the flange and they advised, “No You Did Not,” it was more to the right, ok then I found it!! I was told to keep my bottom time to a minimum so I started right away. I'm glad I had the two wenches; using one of them to hold the bolt heads in place while working the nuts, I remembered I only needed to remove the three top bolts and just slightly loosen every other one around the flange face.
     Now I used my knife to scrape and clean away the worn out gasket from the inside of the flange face before inserting the new gasket which had a welding rod attached to it so I could insert it without losing any fingers.
     By now my bottom time was at around 20 minutes so I had to work faster. After I replaced the gasket I started tightening up the bolts, it was a little hard lining up the holes even with the spud wench
     After double checking every bolt twice I advised topside I was done and ordered the slack taken out of my Life line air hose, and I started back for the basket, I started walking and again fell over that first pipeline again.
It was a long ride up to the surface and the water got lighter and lighter as my faceplate broke the surface. It was a very fast ride out of the water and onto the deck of the rig, two tenders washed me down and started getting me out of my gear real fast and getting me over to the chamber.
     I was on a surface D on O2 table in the deco chamber, I remember it had a bottle of water and a “P” bottle. I was in there for a while and was both comfortable and a little nervous as well. I had been in a chamber twice before for an O2 tolerance test with a diver and an internal tender on air.
     That was my first dive as a commercial hardhat diver and my last for another six or seven months. I found out I had a ton to learn, so it was back to Dive Tender / Stand By Diver or, as I was called, Semi-Scrub!
     That was over 7,ooo dives ago, a coma from breathing bad gas on a sat dive, a few broken bones, and a reconstructed left with four knee surgeries. Some bad cuts and scrapes and a few broken hearts as well. That's another thing that you don't learn in dive school: how to prepare yourself for Dear John letters while you are away from home so much. But that's another story.

The North Sea - Jay Moskowitz February 2008
     The North Sea on average is one place where diving is a very series business. You have to be certified by IMCA who, for a fee, will give training as well as written, oral, and practical exams to certify divers for commercial diving in the North Sea. Most diving companies will send their divers for such training or hire an instructor to train and certify their divers.
     About 15 years or so ago I received my training in Aberdeen, Scotland, it was the longest and toughest 6 weeks of training I ever had. It got me into the best shape of my life both physically and mentally. The training pretty most prepared me for every aspect of Saturation diving in the North Sea, So after my training I was now a Certified Saturation Diver, International.
     Most diving in the North Sea is saturation diving due to the depth and cost. It's more cost effective to keep a dive team in saturation to working depth then to put a man through constant deco, not to mention what this does to a diver after a short time, so keeping the divers at depth is a lot easier on the team physically but mentally is another matter altogether. Since they would compress once and decompress once, normally saturation decompression at the end of the job is 24 hours for every 100 feet of Sea Water. So this type of diving is preferred.
     The rig I was on was Jennifer. It was a very large semi-submersible rig. The production platform whose name I now forget was about 2 hours away by support boat. The weather in the North Sea is almost never clear and almost always chilly and that’s on a good day.
     There was a lot of work that was done at shallower depths (100 feet or less) as well as the deep stuff and even those divers had to go through the same certification process so they could be used as stand by divers. Shallow divers were used to cut riser clamps or do shallow water inspections, etc. One job is the cleaning of suction strainers, these are usually found on larger vessels and barges. These strainers occasionally need cleaning or needed to be removed for replacement of the screens. For this type of job the diver needed to make sure that the engines or any machinery was shut down! The times I did it, I took a game fishing hook and ground down the barb on the hook to make it smooth, used a ¼” line about 2 or 3 feet long and a snap hook to hold me in place while scraping with a strong putty knife and a wire brush. These would not only get rid of the heavy growth but also clean the screen down to bear metal. When the screen needed to be removed I used the same rig with a longer line so I could tie a loop and just sit in it. A 5 lb. magnet and coffee can worked great to hold tools and nuts and bolts. These are just a couple of shallow water dives that are necessary on any vessel, barge and Oil Rig.
Saturation Diving is a whole other process. For one thing there is a saturation gas rack that is manned 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The breathing gas is constantly being monitored. Stepping into a deck chamber which is big enough to hold 4 to 6 divers and their equipment, there is very little room for personal items but every man has his own bulk and space which is usually very small.
     A saturation dive is usually a team that has worked together before so they all know each other well enough to handle the confinement of a deck chamber or, if a new team was put together, they were given a chance to get to knew each other before compressing. Once you’re in a chamber and compression starts with a new group, the group learns to become a team very fast because you and your new best friends are most likely going to be in there for about 4 months give or take a week or two. When a diver is on his, or nowadays her, first sat dive you start to realize that there is nowhere to be if you don't mix well with other people. There have been cases where a diver had to be pulled for their and the other diver's safety. He’s put into a small chamber for transfer and is replaced by a standby. I've seen that only once.
     On a saturation job teams are grouped into pairs and the way to get to the job is by way of a transfer bell, which is mated to the deck chamber. Besides the two divers and their gear, food and drink are taken along. Dives can go as long as 8 hours depending on what needs to be done, the dive operations go around the clock, 24 hours a day so when two divers are working, the other 2 or 4 are preparing for their turn or just trying to rest. This work is taxing on both body and mind.
     Once the divers have entered the bell and hooked up and tested their gear and communications the dive supervisor asks the divers if they are ready to go. Once the divers give the ready to go, the hatch is closed and dogged. The bell is now separated from the deck chamber and slowly pulled away and lowered over the side by the deck crane and into the water. Constant communications is maintained to make sure all is well in the bell. Once the bell hits the water and is on its way to working depth, the divers relax for the trip that could take up to an hour or so; remember saturation jobs can go from 300 feet to over 1000 feet. The hardest thing I had to get over was watching out the view port and watch the light disappear. The deeper you went the darker it gets. Even with the external lighting systems, which helped a little, it was still darker than night.
     By the 2nd week in Saturation there's pretty much a set schedule for the dives and what needs to be done, and the divers usually now by now how to stay out of each others space. Remember, there's very little space in a deck chamber so everyone knows what's who's, all of us look forward to mail call, watching videos, listening to taped mail through head phones… everything is basically normal with the exception that your living in a compressed tube.
     In a saturation job you also have a chance to learn from the experts, since every man in the chamber is at the top of his or her game, I learned about pipe fitting, welding tricks, using non-destructive testing equipment like a hand held X-Ray. It was also the first time I ever used a hot water suit. I also got to try out different of hats as well. On the job I was on, I got a chance to dive a Miller and a Savoie with a flip up face plate and demand regulator rig
     That helmet was the most comfortable hat I ever wore. It was heavy stainless steel. I ended up using that hat more than my Superlight.
     By the 4th Month we were making ready to decompress to sea level. There was a lot of packing up and cleaning up. Every diver had shells and coral. The dive supervisor outside the chamber advised us to make sure, “Your garbage is bagged and tagged.”
When we exited the chamber there was a lot of cheers and clapping from the other divers and rig crew, which was a little unusual because anyone that's worked a rig knows that for the most part the divers and riggers don't normally mix. But on a saturation rig in the North Sea those guys know that if something were to happen like a valve O-ring cracking or a section of pipe or metal hose splitting even with all the safety and back up features, we would blow up and explode like balloons if we didn't get into a portable chamber and the transfer capsule in time, this is why we also ran drills. Everyday!
     Also every man was CPR and First Aid certified. One member of the team I was on was a diver paramedic, so he was responsible for all the medical supplies and believe me, we got cuts and scrapes. One of us needed stitches. This medic was the one who took care of us, even a headache or stuffy nose and score throat; he was our doctor and mother, and that was his nick name, “Mother”, and he got the biggest space!! Like I said before Saturation jobs are not only physically demanding but mentally as well, letters from home sometimes caused issues and he listened.
     I can honestly say that the two times I was in the North Sea were the best experiences of my career. Best not only for the travel, but for the divers I met and got to know as brothers. I learned a lot more in those 4 months on my first North Sea job then I thought I would. I did two North Sea gigs and I will tell any diver new and old, “You've got to go there at least once in your career.” Even though there are plenty of saturation jobs in the Gulf or East and West coasts, there's nothing like the North Sea.

No One Knows It All - Jay Moskowitz February 2008
     My last rotation Offshore was a real eye opener and learning experience. I've always been the kind of diver that believed that the “The more you know, the longer you’ll live.” These words have kept me alive though sat dives, pipeline penetrations, deep water inspections, even underwater demolitions!
     I remember getting a call from a buddy that went and got married and wanted me to work his rotation offshore, off New Jersey.
I was up and flying to the rig the next morning at 5am. It was a cold and dark morning and the pilot knew me and asked me to take over for part of the flight. I took flying lessons some years back and I'm cleared to fly Bell jet rangers which everyone knows is the offshore work horse. So I flew for an hour while the pilot snored.
     Anyway, after touching down on the rig and waking the pilot, I was in time for coffee and breakfast and a briefing. I met up with the diving supervisor who assigned me two tenders, a male and female. The guy looked like he was seven feet tall when I shook his hand mine disappeared in his. Mike was his name and he was a professional tender; most tenders are looking to break out but he was a professional tender. The gal was a slim blond. Pat was her name and she said right off who she was and why she was there. She was beautiful and looked strong enough to kick the shit out of every man on the rig at once! After the meeting and eating I checked out the dive schedule to see who did what and meanwhile my tenders checked out my gear and the compressor setup, comms; the works. These tenders were squared away and they knew what they were doing.
     I found out I was on inspection and clean up detail. Shit, this meant cleaning growth off the rig legs and such, inspecting flange faces, scraping, burning and if needed, repair welding. I even had a do a prop pull to get the pin so that it can be retooled in the machine shop. Cleaning down the legs of a rig is usually a shit job but a few hundred feet of primer cord does the trick of burning off the crap and the rest was just trying to keep a schedule with two dives a day and minimal Deco time. For the next three weeks I was doing underwater surveys and inspections of flange bolt ups and alignments, not to forget the rig maintenance; everything thing from inspections to welding. And a crew vessel, the Johnson II - damn vessel had a bottom like a water melon.It was a bitch to clean the crap off her hull even with a hull scrubber!! As any diver knows, one of the worse jobs is the sections, you have to remember the little details, the welds that were not done and then you're asked to fix this kind of bullshit.
     I remember on one dive I was using a Savoie and my tenders being the professionals they are were, were holding my lifeline and air hose. I was at 160 feet burning a riser clamp and these tenders gave me just the right amount of slack, taking it in and letting it out. I barely had to say a word other than “Make it hot, make it cold”. I decided that I'd let Pat get wet and give me a hand replacing a flange gasket. She was certified and was eager to breakout, so we did a 200 foot jump and were able to change out the gasket quick and easy. From that point on she dove once a week and by the end of the offshore shift my tender became a JR diver which mean easy dives until another diver like me gives her more responsibility!!!
     The rotation continued; in fact during this one we were inspected. I never went through one before. From the second this five man team landed everyone on the rig was nervous, cause these guys can cause a lot of problems, not only for the Oil company but for the contractors that put the crew on the rig. Even the dive crew wasn't safe from their red marker. Two of the inspectors needed to see all the dive logs and diver paper work. Two the divers were removed from the rig for not have their paperwork. I'm glad I keep mine, originals and copies safe and secure! Well, we weren't shut down but we did receive a few warnings and that was enough to get a few riggers yelled at. Plus the dive superintendent had to explain why the hell weren't those two diver’s paperwork checked prior to dives. I don't know if anyone else has gone through this bullshit. I was shitting while sitting across a table from these guys and being asked all kinds of questions and a lot of them I knew the answers to about what I saw on the rig, but just played dumb. Besides, I had more important things to worry about, like securing boom moorings, and grinding welds down; the normal stuff.
     This rotation was over in 5 days and I would find myself working for the Environmental Protection Agency. Like I said at the start, no matter how long or short your time in this business, you have to have room in your head to learn more shit. I've been diving now for the better part of 30 years and I'm still learning to figure things out and make it all work right. I know it sounds like a lot of crap, but I'm always coming up with stuff that makes no since to someone with a masters in engineering. Hell, some of these guys will scratch their heads wondering how the hell does that work. I simply tell them, it's not the why, it's that it does, and as long as the ocean allows it to work then hell, just go with it.
     I'll give you one example, I had the do some simple rigging to haul up a section of plating that had been cut through. Sounds easy until your down there with no vis feeling your way and hoping to hell nothing starts moving from current or whatever. I know a few guys that have lost a finger or two. Anyway, all I had to do was find a edge, burn a hole, and shackle it up, then work my way down the plate and do it two more times. I tied a tag line to all three so I could pull down the slings one at a time, and shackle them up. Now all I had to do was get the hell out of the way and radio topside to haul it up. The engineers on the job kept saying only two were needed and that I was putting in a lot of unnecessary bottom time. Well, three were needed because as soon as this mother started moving and was off the bottom and hanging one of the ends broke free and I had to rig one more shackle on the end to keep the plate level. And it was one big mother! So even the highly educated can learn a few ticks here and there, if their mind is open to it. I know I'm still trying to figure it out and I'm been underwater a long time.
     So no matter what dive I'm doing whether it's burning, welding, inspections or opening a valve, if some guy tells me to crack right and spin it left… well hell, I'll try it. Learning this business takes a life time to do and the more technical the work is, the longer it takes to understand.
     I’m looking forward to one day being able to say, “Yes, I’ve done it all,” but until then it's more like, “Can you run that by me again?”

Tenders Are Like Cheap Hookers - J Johnson February 2008
     So there I was... a brand new tender in the Gulf of Mexico straight out of dive school thinking I was on top of the world. I was a new worker for an outfit in Morgan City, going through my paper work and certifications, when the day comes to go get my physical.

     It all started out as normal as a dive physical could be - piss in a cup, blow your lungs out, and finding out you can't hear shit. So the time comes to see the Dr. and he walks in and puts me through a series of tests. I pass them. All of a sudden he must have felt an urge from the devil himself and says in a deep stern voice "Drop your pants and put your elbows on the table." At this point, having been lowered to the level of the cheap dirty hooker I was planning on picking up that night, I turned and awaited in fear and agony. The Doc then checks the oil; but before finishing up, asks me to squeeze. I was a little confused, seeing as I wasn't holding anything, so I said "What do you mean, Doc?"

     He replies with multiple full bends of the finger and repeating "squeeze, squeeze." It was at that point that all of my ego from dive school and thinking I was the shit changed to the reality that a tender is the equivalent of a cheap hooker willing to work for cheap and selling their dignity...

     Oh, the humanity.

Cowboy Days - Lawrence Goldberg August 2007
     In 1985 I was a consultant to SubSea International on a Western Oceanic UWILD. It was a 90’ for :30 no “D” dive. It was about 4:00 PM and the seas were running around 5 to 7 ft. I took the stage down from the deck of a jack up. Popped down to 90 feet and began water blasting (20KPSI/10GPM) one of the legs for NDT (MT). The current was a little swift, maybe a knot. I purchased myself and hose including the water blaster on one of the chords. Vis was 0-2 feet. After a while, I kind of felt 30 minutes was up. Then the air ran out.
     I asked Cecil if he was playing a joke. He said, No, you have 200 psi. By then the hat was percolating and I wasn't asking Cecil no more. I dropped the weights, popped the neck dam and then went for the quick release. Couldn't find my quick release, so I pulled out my Navy KBar and thought I would cut the umbilical which I never did because I realized that wasn't an option. I remember putting back in the scabbard thinking I might need it if I got fouled when and if I was going to bail. I found the quick release and started to kick like crazy for the surface. I finally saw that greenish type salt water, popped up and yelled, Help! Help! Took the neck dam off and chucked it. I am not sure but I probably took a leak in my wetsuit because I was either cold or realized that I was alive. It took the rig one hour to get its Zodiac ready (there was a supply vessel pumping mud and tied off to the other legs; don't ask). They finally picked me up in 8-10 ft seas. I remembered the Zodiac was half inflated when they hauled my ass in.

     Cause: Dive hose failed right at the fitting, Diver’s end.

     Lessons Learned:
          1. The dive sup should have told me to put the pneumo in my hat.
          2. I should have put my pneumo in my hat.
          3. I should have worn a bailout. (this was pre bailout era)
          4. They should have jumped the standby diver.
          5. I shouldn't have wrapped myself around the chord.
          6. I should have stopped the dive due to seas.
          7. Bill the drilling contractor for your neck dam.

     I jumped back in the water next day and I felt good.

Blenny Bait - M Morris August 2007

      I was offshore for S&J Diving Company in High Island block something or another in about 110 fsw. We had recently broken out a well liked tender and it was his turn in the water. We were performing a class 3 inspection on a 6 legged platform.  We were grit blasting the nodes just before the eventful dive happened.

     It was after sunset and the weather was perfect.  We were all happy about a good job going well with decent depth and great visibility.  I was on standby with Brad Carter supervising.  We had the Diver on bottom about to video some weld, we were ready to make progress, and things were good.

     We were watching the video commenting on the corals when a bloodcurdling scream comes out of the dive radio at max volume along with an urgent message that went something like this --- AAIIEEIIAA!! Up on the Diver, they’re eating me, there’s a thousands of them, up on Diver, up on Diver, IIIEEEAAAAIIIIII!!!

     Well by the time the first “up on Diver” comes out I’m rushing out of the dive shack and bumping into a deck hand yelled at him – “Get a first aid kit, some help, and come to the back deck, NOW”. I rush to the back deck and about this time the Diver is on deck and de-hatting.  I look him over real good expecting to see blood everywhere and body parts missing.   He’s of breath, wild-eyed, and can only speak in short spurts.

     “Oh God I thought I was going to die, there were millions of these tiny fish. They just kept pelting me hard like someone threw gravel real hard at me”.  “I thought they were eating me”.

     No blood, no limbs missing, not even a tear in the overalls.  Everybody out there on the deck expecting a major catastrophe was simply astonished.  Our tough, macho, heavily muscled breakout diver was reduced to a blithering *** by a school of baitfish being chased by something.  We all had a good laugh which continued every time someone brought up the subject,  which was pretty often considering the nickname – Blenny Bait got attached to the diver who suffered the attack.  Two weeks later he went to work for CalDive. Wonder if they call him Blenny Bait.

     Reminds me of the time a trigger fish tried to eat my fingers.

Mexican Breakfast - J Fesmire March 2007

     I had the pleasure of being woken up on a crewboat out in the Pemex oilfields near ciudad del carmen mexico a few years back by the harsh roll of side seas somewhere in the 8-10 foot range.  I should have known something wasn't right when my ride was three hours late at the airport, or at least when he led me past five sunken relics in the harbor before leaving me tired and jetlagged on the raggedy old jet boat by my lonesome.  I was too green to see the light and too tired to care, so after a few hours of fitful sleep I sit up to see the dark cabin packed with Mexican nationals eyeing me because I'm the only guy taking up four seats.  I stumble up on deck into another world.

     The dark windy night and rough seas don't even really catch my attention, it's the huge platform city with 10 story fires burning off the end of every available flareboom.  It was like a scene from starwars with all the big scary vessels and platforms swinging personell off the deck in the harsh orange firelight.  What makes it really surreal is that the deck is packed, standing room only, the deck lights are out, and pitching around like a loose roof in a tornado.  I was feeling about as overwhelmed and detracted as a fly on an elephants ass when the guy next to me turns and pukes over the rail, straight into the wind, and I smell and feel a steady rain of gut chunks bounce off the side of my face.

     Man did that incident make an impression.

     On quiet mornings, when the air is just right, I can still smell the tang of that guy's breakfast. 

Space Bell - Steve Pfaff March 2007

     Several years ago, I learned that a nearby coastal aquarium had an old diving bell that it was going to scrap. It had been donated to the aquarium by a former employee of the old Perry Oceanographics company but it was never placed on display.  I thought it might make a good display for the museum in my home town and luckily, I got to the aquarium a day before the scrap metal dealer.  The aquarium director was happy for me to take it.  It turned out to be a two-man bell called a "Sea Kite", which was designed to be towed behind a vessel at slow speeds.  It had a stainless steel hatch, view ports, a gas supply system, two diving planes, and was painted yellow. Both, the bell and the trailer it sat on, were rusty due to sitting near the beach for so long.

     I got a lot of funny looks while towing it for almost five hours to get to the museum.

     I stopped to gas up my SUV in a small town and a crusty old timer walked up to the trailer and said, "You must work for NASA  'cause I know that there thang is one of them space capsules.  I seen pictures of 'em."

     Well, I was tired and did not feel like going into a long explanation so I said yes, that I did work for NASA, and I was taking it to a museum.

     The old dude walked over to the bell, slapped the side of it with his hand and said as he walked away, " Damn thangs shor git rusty up in space."

Rig Monkey - S Terry January 2007

     A tourist walked into a pet store and was looking at the animals on display. While he was there, a petroleum engineer from a nearby office walked in and said to the storekeeper, "I'll take a rig hand monkey please."
     The storekeeper nodded, went to the side of the store, and took out a monkey. He put a collar and leash on the animal and handed it to the engineer, saying, "That'll be $2000." The man paid and left with the monkey."
The surprised tourist went to the storekeeper and said, "That was a very expensive monkey. Most monkeys are only a few hundred dollars. Why did that one cost so much?"
     The storekeeper answered, "Ah, that's a rig monkey. He can rig up, plan rig moves, rewind motors, tail pipe, paint, pull maintenance, all with no back talk or complaints. It's well worth the money."
The tourist then spotted a monkey in another cage. "That one's even more expensive!! $10,000 !! What does it do??" he asked.
     Oh, that one" replied the storekeeper. " That's a Rig Manager monkey. It can instruct at levels of maintenance, run the safety program, deal with clients, and even do some paper work. A very useful monkey indeed."
     The tourist looked around a little longer and found a third monkey in a cage. The price tag was $50,000.
     The shocked tourist exclaimed, "This one costs more than all the others put together !!. What in the world can it do??".
     Actually," said the shopkeeper, "I've never actually seen him do anything except drink beer and play with his dick, but his papers say he's a Company Man."

Shit, There I was - Scott E January 2007

No shit, there I was on the B. This is one of H's barges and it is the worst one in the Gulf.  There are a few things you can be expected to see and do one this gem, as the unfortunate souls that have been on this barge will tell you:

1. Lose at least 10 lbs; it feels weird when your body eats it self. 

2. Pee out of your ass; this dose not stop when you get off
the barge - expect at least 2 weeks of this sensation on the beach (bring on the baby powder). 

3. See things that will make your safety guy quit his job.

Every time I am on the B I all ways walk away with some stories that are unreal.

We where burying pipe in 100 + foot of water, no big deal; a jet sled check every 6 hours, about 15 minutes of diving, and you go back to sleep. Well, that is if every thing is going ok but on the Brazos you expect the worst. Let me sum up everything real quick so I can get to the juicy part.

We got stuck in ruff seas that lasted 7 days and nights. On a good day you where looking at 2 to 4’s and on the worst it was 5 to 7’s.  The riggers had cut a moon pool in the back deck so the jet sled could fit. The pumps that they had to have running 24-7 to keep the water out of the barge went down so the back end dropped about 6 ft (right to the water line). When the rollers came, they would clear the handrail by 3 feet. When you went down, you where swept toward the moon pool so we had a rope you could grab to pull your self back up.  The hole in the barge got bigger and bigger and made a new hole in the fresh water tank, so salt water showers for all.  They ran out of fresh water to cook with, so salt water food for all.  The whole barge lost power 3 times in 4 weeks, the black outs would last any where from 3 hours to10 hours.  The crane caught fire 4 times, and broke down every other day.  The anchors needed to be untangled every 3 days.  But everyone was in good humor. We all shared the same insanity and could laugh about it.  Now for the good part of the story.

As the lead tender on the barge, when the diver came up I would run the chamber while the other tender cleaned the dive gear. He would take over when he was done.  As always, the dive sup (Adam) would come down and shoot the shit with me and whoever was in the can.  Well, Adam and me where talking when we hear the diver start to grunt and moan. We look at eachother then look in the chamber.

"Hey man are you ok in there?" I ask.

"Yeah I am just trying to hold back this turd," he says.

After about a min the diver screams at me, "Hey, Scott get a bucket with a plastic bag in it, I can't hold it!"

"Funny joke. Don't shit in my chamber," I say, and look at Adam.

I don't think he’skidding," says Adam.

He gets on the coms and says "Hey man don't joke about that."

"It's coming!!!" the diver screams.

“Not on my watch!” shouts Adam and runs out the door.

I can hear Adam yelling at the tenders and riggers to find a bucket.  Thirty seconds later he comes back in with an old half used paint bucket and a couple of plastic bags and throws them in the outer lock, slams the door shut and I blow it down as fast as the compressors will let me.  The diver jumps on the bucket and starts to set up his plastic bag toilet seat.

Adam and I and the rest of the dive crew plus a few riggers are looking in at him and just howling, making fun, and giving advice like, "Just relax man it will come", "Watch out for the bibs hose", and from the riggers: "You divers are some sick fucks." 

After about 10 mins of this everyone finally leaves the freak show and it’s down to Adam and the diver and myself again.  We wipe the tears from our eyes and rub our cheeks from the good laugh.

Well, finally, he is done.

"Did you guys get any toilet paper?" he asks.

"No did you want me to go get some?" I him back.

"No, its ok I got something." And shows us a bibs wipe (AKA alcohol wipes, like the ones from Hooters).

Well at least he will be clean, I think to myself.

He begins to wipe, and starts howling "IT BURNS, IT BURNS!!!", and Adam and I hit the floor rolling as our diver does his not so happy dance around the inside the chamber with his cheeks spread open to show where the Indian shot him.  By this time I am weak and my face hurts from laughing so much. I try to help the poor guy by venting him. He seemed to like it until the shit bucket started to chase him around the chamber.

"Wow,” I tell Adam, “I think we have a new type of pinball game!!" 

After playing Catch The Naked Diver With The Shit Bucket for while, our time was running out.  So we brought the diver back to the surface and were still laughing about it while we watched him clean the chamber and threaten riggers with his bucket of fun on the way to throw it out.

So, Shit, there I was. ----Scott E.

Ask any oilfield diver... - Deep Sea Dan January 2007

     ...where he stayed while hanging in Singapore looking for work & he will probably say the "Mitre Hotel."
     The Mitre was a run down shanty of a lodging house ( its still operating today & may have seen renovations since 85' ) sitting on some very prime real estate in central Singapore. During my time there the hotel was run by an endearing Chinease family, headed by the ubiquitous "Mr. Lim". Gracious & friendly, he would take care of your daily needs, which mainly involved serving ice cold beer in the hotel's main lobby. It was at this bar that an eclectic assortment of sea dogs, scurvy divers, aging hippies, struggling jazz musicians & any number of other intrepid wanderers would gather to tell stories & debate the issues of the day.
     One afternoon, a lovely "Sheila" ( meaning "sweet thang" in Aussie-land ) was arguing the merits of Australian beer with some newly landed British musicians when she was interupted by the bone-rattling jangle of the lobby phone. Mr. Lim shuffled his way over, spoke briefly, covered the phone's mouthpiece & stated: "Man wants to know if any diveahs wanting wook"... I took the call.
     Ten days later myself & some mates were jetting to Hong Kong to rendevous with the balance of the diving crew & together we’d join the ship’s crew down at the harbour. Many of the divers we were to work with had been part of a fabulously successful salvage effort in Indonesia about a year earlier. Having put to sea after a long wait for a typhoon to pass through, the expedition stumbled upon the perfectly preserved cargo of a Chinease junk while towing divers on planer boards in the gin clear waters. The typhoon had removed about 30' of sand overburden, exposing blue Ming porcelain, much of it still wrapped in the original packing! Though not the target they had set out to find, after much debate they decided to stay & recover the treasure ( o.k., there was actually no debate, just alot of whopping & dancing & celebrating...), but I digress...
     We were going after tin. Actually, 70 lb. ingots of high grade Malaysian tin that was part of the cargo aboard a Japanese passenger-freighter sunk by a U.S. submarine near the end of the war in the Pacific. The wreck was located in the Straits of Taiwan, a hotly disputed area of the South China Sea. It has long been known that China & Taiwan do not exchange Christmas cards & both lay claim to the waters of the Strait. The salvage operator had worked a contract with the Taiwanese government as international coastal law put the wreck's location within Taiwan's territorial limits. At least thats what the contract said.
     For 5 days we readied the vessel for salvage. The ship had to be moored well out into the harbour as it carried a large amount of dynamite on board. We needed the explosive to open the deck plating over the cargo holds so the ship's peel grab could be lowered inside the holds to remove the tin. Each day we'd take a small boat out for the hours ride to the salvage vessel, work 12-14 hours, then ride back in for yet another night in the wilds of Hong Kong & Kowloon. When all was ready we set sail for Kaoshung ( on the island of Taiwan )for a 24 hr. lay-over before heading for the wreck. As this was to be our last night in port for some time, we of course had to socialize. We found this nightclub near the harbour area & all of a sudden it is no longer 1985, its 1971! We thought we'd been time-warped back to the early seventies as we entered this place; black lighting, pounding Jim Morrison, waist-length hair & elevator shoes...absolutely freaky! O.k., so there a bit behind, we raised the roof with them & had a night to remember...man.
     With the rising sun we sailed for the wreck, each man mentally calculating his cut of the haul & making plans to spend his fortune. In 10 hrs. we were on station. As the marine crew laid the anchors we prepared to dive. I was to make the first dive with "Micky," one of two men running the salvage operation. I knew that Mick had been to this wreck the year before with another crew & they were successful in opening up the #1 hold. What I didn't know was that the events of the previous year which put an early end to that expedition would soon return to haunt us.
     The Straits of Taiwan in the middle of March is not idyllic in terms of diving. With an average 2'- 4' chop, a steady 2 knot surface current, 42 degree water temp. & poor visibility, the diving would be tough. Compounding the elements were the many fishing nets snagged on the wreck. We were using a large steel cage as an elevator to the bottom. The plan was to do a quick survey of the wreck & locate the #1 hold, we would then guide the peel grab to the entrance of the hold & then surface. The best laid plans...
     When Mick & I reached bottom @ 201' the bottom current was howling & the cage was being blown about like a toy in the wind. Fishing netting was wafting over & around the cage & I worried we'd get fouled in it. Since we had little means of altering our decent site at this anchorage it was decided to abort the dive. As Mick & I sat in the deck chamber decompressing the salvage master decided to run the grab down blind & try to locate the #1 cargo hold. As I exited the chamber I surveyed the fruits of his first few attempts. The loads were dropped on the deck & hosed down with fire hoses. Piping, wiring & what appeared to be machine shop tools were separated & inspected. I noticed something odd under some torn deck plating & pulled it free; what I'd found was a 45 caliber pistol, still in the leather holster! All the wooden parts had been eaten away but the frame remained as did a dozen or so bullets still in their keepers. I cleaned er' up, strapped er' on & now I was the sheriff of this here ex-pee-dition! With the addition of my Texan mate's 10 gallon hat I was ready to keep law n' order on the high seas!
     Engineering drawings of the wreck showed the machine shop to be just foreward of the 1st cargo hold so the grab's boom was repositioned & soon the fire hoses revealed the first tin ingots amidst the debris! Further diving was halted as we worked the 1st hold all that day & night, storing the tin on pallets covered with tarp. With dawn came the first fishing junks. We watched as they slowly circled our vessel. By 0900 there were about 30 fishing boats, by 1100 that number had increased to almost one hundred! I gathered they were unhappy with our presence as they continuously yelled, shook their fists & brandished clubs & machetes. I subconsciously patted the trusty 45 at my side...together we would repel all boarders. We used our vessels water cannon to keep them at bay, but one boat managed to slip alongside & a very agile, very upset young man lept over our port rail & wrapped his arms & legs around some large diameter deck piping. It took two men to pry him off & he was then unceremoniously tossed back into the arms of his fellow fishermen. Despite all this, the grab continued its' work & the pile of tin continued to grow. With the coming of dusk the fishing boats began to leave & by dark the sea around us was empty once more.
     By 0900 the following morning all was clear save one boat off in the distance that was definitely not a fishing junk. The smell reached us before the boat did, the smell of unwashed bodies & rotting food. As they came alongside we realized these were Vietnamese refugees, some of the infamous "boat people" that were fleeing communist rule in Nam. They were a pitiful sight. We quickly gathered up fuel, fresh food, water, medicines, clothing & candy for the kids. More grateful people I shall never see again. They sailed away & we hoped they'd find their freedom.
     The work continued. By first light of the following day we had 25 tons of tin recovered & were preparing to dive again when ( I was beginning to really dislike mornings ) over the horizon came navy vessels; three Chinease naval gunships to be precise. Two stood off while the third radioed they were coming alongside to board. We watched as their lines were made fast to our cleats. In my 10 gallon hat & trusty sidearm I struck my best Eastwoodesque squint. A gangway was run & a dozen Marines hustled smartly aboard, six per side of the gangway. They starred straight ahead, weapons at the ready, as a contingent of naval brass strutted aboard & on up into our wheelhouse to confer with the salvage master. On deck, nobody moved. I shifted my hat & hiked up my sidearm, noticing that a few of the marines were stealing the occassional glance my way. It was the final scene in the "Good, Bad & the Ugly". My draw hand twitched just above my 45. And then I drew. Regretably, my trusty/rusty gun barrel got caught up in my holster & by the time I struggled it out the barrel was bent to 90 degrees! I looked up to see most of the Marines  doing their best not to laugh & for the first time that day I started to relax. I ran down to my cabin & opened the porthole; some of the gunship's deck crew noticed me waving at them & cautiously came over. I stuck that month's playboy centerfold out the port to the excited appreciation of the Chinease sailors. I was in the midst of sharing other anatomical periodicals when one of my mates burst into the room & snatched the mag. from my grasp. "Hey, give that back, you can't even read!" I quipped. "Doofus, that form of instructional anatomy is strictly forbidden in China, if they catch you showin' this stuff we'll be hauled off to the hoosegow!" Ooops.
     Thirty minutes after tieing off the gunship was casting off & heading away. Our salvage master had insisted that any dispute over our legal right to be there had to be handled by our lawyers & the Chinease government. The skipper of the gunship reluctantly agreed & said a decision would be forthcoming in 24 hrs.
     Those 24 hrs. went by in a blur. We knew they'd be back & this time they'd probably search the ship so we emptied our lower hold of spare anchor & chain & laid in the tin.
We then replaced the anchor & chain over the tin to provide an effective cover. We left all the scrap steel, machine shop tools, spare bronze propeller blade & even my beloved sidearm on deck for them to find. Being of Dutch registry, our vessel carried copious amounts of Heiniken beer in stores. Out it came! Some of the netting we hauled up had tasty blue crabs inside so our Indonesian mates cooked us up what I gently referred to as " Hellfire Crab Casserole"...a deliciously toxic, thermonuclear stew that made itself known for days afterward.
     You guessed it, with dawn's early light they returned, but they didn't search us. They arrested us! With two guards & a harbour pilot on board they escorted us on a 6 hr. sail to an unnamed Chinease military port. Rumors ran rampant as to our fate. Torture? Imprisonment? Will they confiscate our Heinies!?! The next day they searched the ship from stem to stern & took all our trash...but they didn't find the tin!! For two days we drank Hienies & danced naked on the after-deck, trusting fate to set us free. A guard remained on board around the clock but he was no trouble, he happily devoured all the porn on board!
     After 3 days of captivity we were escorted out to sea & sternly told to leave & not return. Fine by me, we were living on borrowed time anyway. We returned to Hong Kong & got paid off. After a couple of days onshore we decided to take our money & blow it on a 5 day run through the Philippines,…

      But that’s another story for another day.
Best,
D.S.D.

Picture Credit: Cal Preston 2001

Email from Slim at Tiburon - December 2006
    Having lived in the Pacific Northwest all my life, I thought I had seen some pretty bad weather in my life. I have been taught a lesson in what bad weather really is though a few times though since my decision to pursue a career as an offshore diver. Back in February, we were working off the M/V Hammerhead for Tiburon Divers. This was before the boat had its four point anchor set up, and we were tying up to the platforms we were doing the level 3 inspections on. We had a very safe and knowledgeable crew, the boat crew was great, our supervisor was a 20 year veteran of offshore diving and was a laid back, but no bullshit kind of guy. It was a good hitch for inexperienced tenders that we were, and we learned a lot. One of which was just how bad the weather can be in the south. We had it in our heads that we would be working in tropical, sun filled days, diving in warm water year round, and that the only storms we would see would be tropical storms and hurricanes. Boy could we not have been more wrong!
    The sky’s were grey and the wind was blowing 10 knots for days at a time. Rain gear was pretty much worthless and should have been called wind gear, as that’s the only weather it kept you from. The wind and rain has never really bothered me though, even today after that job. But what I learned is just how powerful the sea can be. We got the word to secure the deck for travel, as the 5-7s were supposed to continue for the next week and we couldn’t dive. So the three of us tenders went through the gear on deck making sure the gear wasn’t going to come loose and fall off the boat while underway. The deck had wooden planks on it so we couldn’t weld the gear down like we wanted to. What we did was chain the equipment down to the pad eyes near the sides of the boat on the port and starboard sides and while underway we would chain the equipment to each other across the deck. Well we had chained them up first this time because the equipment was starting to shift around a little. As I was coiling the cable from the mesotech into its box, the waves that were drenching the deck from the stern kept pushing the box up the deck away from me. I finally got the damn cable in (it never wants to go in right anyway regardless of weather) and was walking up the deck to secure my next thing when my fellow tenders mentioned politely to me that I should look behind me. So I casually did thinking I had left something on the stern I should have put away when I saw it…
    Everything happened in an instant. The wave coming up the deck at me was about two foot off the top of the deck and had ripped the dive hose we had coiled in a figure eight and tied to the chamber with quarter inch polypro rope. The hose, in the wall of water, was coming at me that it was all I could do to but brace myself for it. I have been told that when I looked back at my co-workers the shear look of terror ( I call it surprise) was enough to put them on their asses in laughter. Well the hose and water hit me, hit me low and took out my legs from underneath me. If you know me, you know one of my defining characteristics is that I am six foot six tall and 180 lbs. As I was falling backwards expecting a collision between my ass and the deck, it never happened. My body became a sort of surf board riding the wave and hose. However my ride was short lived as the chains we had put up stopped the hose from going any farther up deck and making somewhat of a lake, dammed by the dive hose. And I was swimming in the middle of it trying to find which way was up. When I emerged, everyone was looking with wide eyes at me, and half smiles on their face. No ones face was lit up more than mine though. With a big smile (probably from insanity) I got to work untangling the hose from chain and securing the deck. After finally having everything secured, we (the tenders) got to go take our cold showers and hit our racks for the 14 hours ride in. I have yet to see anything compare to that day yet, with the exception of the white out squall that took us by surprise on the Great White, But that’s another story….I love my job!

Email from driftpin@lycos.com - December 2006
    In 1997 I was a tender on Global’s derrick barge Sea Constructor. There was another tender that very closely resembled one of the divers except that he was about a foot shorter. From a distance it was difficult to tell them apart, unless they were standing side by side.On this barge we had several new riggers that had never been around diving before. They were particularly interested in the deck chambers.
    One afternoon the tall diver I mentioned was up to dive. He sat around dressed in for a while before the dive was cancelled for whatever reason – don’t remember anymore. The riggers were milling around on deck but shortly before the dive was cancelled, they were called away to work on one of the anchor winches. Not too long after that we did have to make a dive but it was a simple one and the Dive Sup decided to dive a tender. It just happened to be the short tender that resembled the diver.
    Well, the dive goes great and we pick up our tending colleague and put him in the can. The riggers have by now finished with their anchor winch and one of them comes over to have another look at the deck chamber. The operator explains to him that it was to decompress the diver and with that, the rigger looks in the port. He just stands there and stares. After a few seconds he turns around and points at the port.
    “That’s that diver in there?” he asks, and the tender nods yes.
    “Ho-lee-shit,” says the rigger, “how long till he’s full size again?”

From Deep Sea Dan - December 2006
    T'was the summer of 82', & I was working as a diver in support of offshore oilfield drilling operations in the Beaufort Sea. A typical crew rotation would have me offshore 4-6 weeks at a time, sometimes longer. Time ashore was never guaranteed, though we hoped for a week to ten days; invariably, something would go wrong & all hands would be called back to deal with the problem(s).
    I had been ashore for 2 days after a 7 week stint on the drillship when early one morning I dropped by my employer's office to pick up a paycheck. Dressed in my "soon to be out on the town" finery, I had a full day of running around to do prior to hooking up with a certain sweet barmaid who'd promised to make me forget I was a fish.
    With a spring in my step & a song on my lips
    I sashayed in to grab my check & run. After some quick hello's to the guys in the shop I made a bee-line for the door & was more than halfway to freedom when the familiar boom of my boss's voice echoed like a death-knell in my ears:
    "Dan, come on in here a minute!" he bellowed.
    "Can't boss, gotta run..." I said.
    "Not so fast, Diver...got a little job for you" he commanded.
    No good could come of this. The kick about being a working diver is understanding when work calls...you work; no if's, and's or butt's. Say no, & your name goes to the bottom of the call-out list, an unenviable & poverty-inducing place to be.
    "C'mon Boss, I'm only 2 days ashore & time is short..." I pleaded.
    "No problem, just a quick jump & you'll be back in your disco-suit & on your way!", he promised.
    "But I don't have my gear with me," I tried.
    "No problem, the boys out back'll fix you up...have a good dive!”
    Now understand, divers love to set you up at every opportunity, so it was unnerving to find the boys had all the gear for the job loaded out & ready to roll when I trudged dejectedly back into the shop.
    "Not to worry mate, got her all ready to go!", they chimed. They seemed altogether too happy. Warning bells were ringing in my brain as we sped off down the highway
    We were off on a "day-job". You never knew what someone would want you to do from one day to the next on these call-out jobs. Most of them were simple: recovery, inspection etc. etc., but every now & then the request was somewhat bizarre.
    "So, what job's so damn important as to delay my date with destiny", I asked morosely.
    "Something so complex, only a man of your caliber can handle it, Danny-boy" the tender said with a Cheshire Cat grin.
    This little game continued on until the truck wheeled off the highway & pulled into an imposing looking factory; the sign overhead read: "Acme Chicken Processors." A fowl breeze blew as we went through the gate & on into an area notable for the acres of aeration ponds. An official-looking chap in a white hardhat waved us over to where he stood beside one of the steaming, foamy ponds.
    "Glad ta see ya boys, got a little problem for ya!", he said.
    "(GAG!) Yea, great to (GAG!) be here...whats up?" I almost retched the words out.
    "One of the effluent aerators broke its' mounting & sank to the bottom of the pond" he stated.
    Apparently, the byproducts of chicken processing are pumped to a system of holding ponds, where a series of aerating machines mounted on platforms continuously churn the entrail-laden waters to promote the decomposition of the fowl stew.
    My job...find the sunken aerator & tie a line to it. Piece of cake.
    The lads were busily setting up the gear as I looked around for my drysuit.
    "Gee, all the drybags are booked out on jobs", the tender snickered. He pointed to an old, dusty sack off in the corner of the truck.
    "Nothin left but a couple of Yoke's, but don't worry, I grabbed you the best one!". Another snicker.
    "Yoke" is short for "Yokahama diving dress"; a precursor to the modern drysuit, they were originally designed for use with heavy gear ( breastplate/helmet ). We had retrofitted them with a conventional neck seal to allow for use with our lightweight helmet, the "Rat Hat". Rugged & durable, these suits were ideal for the abuses of construction diving, but over the years were put aside for the more modern dress. Regrettably, these suits no longer received regular maintenance...
    To my dismay, the moment I opened the patched & slightly moldy bag, several obese moths emerged from its' dark recesses & lumbered off into the sky. I yanked the tired old suit out & gave it the once over, all the while cursing my luck in a whispered stream of fowl obscenities. A short while later I was suited up & stood, with 1/2" poly line in hand, at the edge of the roiling, bubbly syrup of aerated chicken goo. No sweat, just a walk down a gentle slope to 30', keep going outward for about 40', a quick circle search, sling the load & I'm outta here, I thought to myself as I took those first tentative steps into the mire. I may as well have been walking on oiled ice! Down on me arse I went & slid like a greased pig till I piled up in a boil of slithering entrails.
    No problem. Back on my feet, get my bearings & head out. I had traveled maybe 10' when I first sensed the influx of warm, sludgy semi-fluids seeping into my antiquated diving dress. It was coming down my neck, my back, front, & both legs. I quickened my pace, queasy with the thought of what hideous mutant organisms might dwell in this retched avian scum pond! My mind conjured images of spiny, scaled critters with horny bird feet, patiently probing my orifices for access.
    And then....the aerator!! Tie the knot! Leaving bottom! I would have ran back had my suit not been flooded up to my ribs! Never had a diver so sodden with cluck muck returned to the land of disinfectant as fast as I did that day!
    One hour a 17 showers later, I was pronounced fit to join the human race once more. My last act before leaving that fowl place was to bottle some effluent, which, after brewing for several days in the sun, I poured gingerly into my tender's work boots.
    As I waited in the lobby for my lovely lady, I ruminated over my days work. What can you do but chuckle at life's little side trips? I was still chuckling as my maiden emerged from the elevator:
    "Hi baby! thank god you're hear...I'm near to starving!" she gushed.
    " What shall it be, my little wallflower...filet mignon'? lobster thermadore?...brisket du Daniel hhmmmmmm??" I murmured.
    "Sounds good but...
                                        ...HOW ABOUT CHICKEN!!”

True Story, I swear !
Contributed March 2006
    It was the perfect job for a diver in the Gulf of Mexico back in the summer of 1982. We were providing barge support for a lay/bury barge, and had been checking the jet sled for weeks as we buried a newly laid 6 inch pipeline across miles of open water.
    The water depth was around 135 feet, it was so clear you could see the top of the jet sled from 100 feet away, and we usually only made about a 5 to 10 minute air dive once a day. The rest of the time we hung out on the Heliport, working out, sun tanning and reading. It was monotonous, but damn easy, and even kind of fun, compared to some of the stuff we could have been doing.
    Sled checks are easy and quick if everything is going right, and you know what you're doing. About every 4-6 hours, you jump on the down-line from the stern of the barge, haul ass to the bottom in less than 30 seconds, run around to the back of the sled, take a pneumo reading (that's depth reading for you neophytes) in the bottom of the ditch to make sure the sled is cutting a deep enough ditch (usually 5 feet or so). Then you crawl as fast as you can back about 150 feet in the ditch to where the pipeline is laying hard in the bottom of the ditch and take another pneumo reading to confirm there's enough cover. Almost finished, you jump up out of the ditch while yelling at topside to pick up the diver, run across bottom 20 feet or so to take a final pneumo reading of the natural bottom right before they jerk you off bottom, and you're done. In those days we never even shut the sled pressure, or air lifts down, and the barge just kept pulling ahead. If you were slow, got fouled, or had to take some extra depth readings you might have to serve some in-water decompression, or worse, get in the hot humid deck chamber for 30 minutes or so. We did this every day, every night, like I said, for weeks and weeks, on occasion, even making two jumps a day, which we acted like we hated (we called that double-dipping, 'cause we only got paid for one dive a day, 75 cents a foot).
     Sometimes the sled would register through its side load indicators, or the tow bridle line load indicator, that there was an obstruction causing the sled problems. It might be an old cable, length of drill pipe, or some other crap that's been down there and unknown forever. We always hoped it would be a Spanish Galleon with gold, and we'd conspire to not tell the Barge foreman or Company man, and come back later and get the treasures..........ah yes, heliport dreams.
    So, there I was, enjoying a good book in the morning sun on the heliport, digesting breakfast, expecting to make my scheduled "jump" in a few more hours, when we all heard the giant pumps to the sled idle down. This meant there was some kind of problem with the sled, and a diver would be needed to immediately jump and check it. We all hustled down from the Heliport, the tenders cranked up the dive compressors while I suited up. Just right before throwing on my Miller Helmet, and jumping in, I checked with the barge Foreman. He said there were abnormally high readings on the indicators, so they stopped the barge's forward pull, ran the pumps for a few minutes to make sure all the mud was blown out, and were ready for me to check it. The big Manitowac crane was already attached to the sled to keep it from tipping over in the soft bottom, so if I needed to pick up the sled to clear debris, it was ready with "Captain" Pete the crane operator, standing by. He also said that they were going to rerun the two bow anchors with the Tug while they waited on the divers. "No problem", I said, "I'll see you in a few minutes", and jumped over the side, downline in my hand so I could pull myself down faster than I could free-fall.
     I landed on bottom, and as expected, there was no visibility because of all the stirred up mud. I immediately went to the front of the sled and felt down inside with my leg. I could feel something way back in there with my foot, but couldn't get to it from where I was. I went around to the back of the sled so I could crawl up inside and try to figure out what the obstruction was. It was a really tight fit, up inside the narrow tunnel of the sled, bailout and dive hose hanging up on everything in the dark, me reaching as far forward as I could. Just as I got my hand on the obstruction, an old 55 gallon drum, the sled started moving, then suddenly it shot up off the bottom with me inside of it. As I was in no position to do anything else, I just hung on to whatever I could, not having any idea what was going on. The sled must have gone up 6 or 7 feet, then it dropped back down and I could hear parts of it hitting the pipeline, before it lept back off bottom 15 feet or so. Amazingly, I was unhurt, and simply "dropped" out of the sled, which was still heading to the surface. At this point, still unsure what the hell had happened, I told topside to "pick me the f*#k up!".
    Reaching the dive ladder I looked over, and saw the sled just above the water hanging from the crane, and started to get really pissed. Only pure luck had kept me from getting seriously broken, smashed, or worse, killed, and I wanted to know who, exactly, was responsible. I reached the top of the ladder, pulled off my Miller and started yelling at the Foreman. Between my outbursts, he was able to tell me that the Crane Operator, "Captain" Pete, had overheard the anchor Foreman instructing the Tugboat Captain, also named Pete, to "pick it up Pete", referring of course to an anchor. Being the very aware and astute crane operator Pete was, he picked up the jet sled, with me in it.
     At this point, emotionally charged and with excess Adrenaline coursing through me, I flung my Miller helmet, still with dive hose attached, directly at Pete the crane operator as he sat there holding his palms up in innocence in his seat in the crane control cabin. I of course was as surprised as anyone else that a Miller helmet could actually be thrown that far with a dive hose attached, and that safety glass could break so easily into a million little diamond shaped pieces.
    As was the way back then, if you did something like that, but performed well normally, no one cared. I retrieved my helmet from the floor of the crane cabin, had a brief discussion with the Foreman, made another dive to reset the erroneously removed jet sled, served some short in-water decompression time, and went back to my book on the heliport. We still had weeks more of this to do.
-----Just another GOM Diver-----

Who insists on his anonymity...

Damn Divers This,  Damn Divers That...
Payback's a bitch, ain't it. October 2003
I was out on a Global barge as a company man for Cal Dive to watch them lay a 6” pipeline in 850’ of water for us and I wasn’t too happy because I would miss the diving part of the job. The barge captain was named Captain Black and from what I heard he didn’t like divers too much. Well…. the other company men and I were sitting in the galley taking to him and his rigging foremen and he just goes off on divers. I mean not just a little but for a half an hour, just calling us every name in the book. It just happened I had a couple of friends out there doing the sled checks and I kept telling him that I didn’t think they were bad at all. (the other company men knew I was a diver). As Captain Black was raving about divers he kept looking at me and he finally asked if I was a diver. With joy in my heart I told him I was and about 30 minutes later he laid the end of the pipe down outside of the box! Oh how good it felt when I told him he had to pick it up and lay it down in the box!!! 2 days and 3 tries later it was were I wanted it. It never felt so good to have a barge captain do exactly what I told him, I only wish it could happen more often.
B. Boerner.

Ouch!  Uh..oh….<You okak?> Uh…standby...
Tale of a Saltwater Slurpee from StngLvr@aol.com December 2002
     There I was in the good(?) ol’ GOM chipping grout.  A satellite had fallen over and we’d killed the wells through the tree while it was on bottom, stripped back the cassion, and found…you guessed it, grout.  I’m not talking about grout in between the production and intermediate cassion b/c that was gone.  I’m talking about an indeterminate amout of grout between the outer cassion and the intermediate which “wasn’t supposed to be there”.  We’ve gotten it down to about five feet off of natural bottom when we gave up on the chippers and called in for a jackhammer.  We get the biggest busting up the interstate jackhammer I’ve seen offshore.  Two tenders could hardly carry it and when you stood it up it came up almost to my chest and I’m a tall guy.  So here I am on bottom busting out the grout and the intermediate cassion is offset in the outter so there’s about two feet of clearance between the two.  The hole has been dug out pretty well between the two and it sloped up to the surface of the grout over a distace of about six feet.  There’s also a diver killer in the deepest part to remove the debris.  After a while I bury the bit of this jackhammer in the side of the grout and I get down on my belly pushing chunks of grout into the airlift and as I was doing this the hammer decides to fall across the back of my neck and my hat.  The guys topside see the camera get mashed into the bottom and they hear me grunt but that’s about it.  The conversation goes as follows:
<Supervisor> You okay?
<Diver>  Uh…yeah..standby.
<S>  What’s going on?
<D>  I’m just cleaning out the hole here.
<S>  Okay.
At this point my hat’s cocked around on my head and I’m watching water trickle in through my flapper, I’m flat on my face with my feet up a couple of feet higher than my head, and I can’t reach my hat b/c I’ve go this monster jackhammer on my neck with a cassion on either side of  it.  I figure I’ll try and pull my head out from under this mess b/c I can’t get my arms around to push it off.  I try to heave-ho out from under this thing and the hammer slips again REALLY twisting my hat around.  I’m half choked by my chin strap and the water is aobut two inches deep in my hat and cmming in faster now.  I’m thinking this would be a good time to open my free flow but of course I can’t get to the knob.  Conversation goes as follows:
<S>  You done cleaning that debris out yet?
<D>  Cough! Wheeze.  Yeah, I’m almost..gurgle..gurgle..done.
<S>  You okay?  Do you have water in your hat?
<D>  It’s just..cough..cough..leaking a little.  Standby.
<S>   Alright just hurry it up a bit.
I’m thinking that worse comes to worse I can jam my face in my oral nasal and still breathe, or not.  Hmmm which way did I install that flapper in my oral nasal last week…
As luck would have it I happened to get my foot on a piece of grout sticking out and got some footing.  I heaved on the hat again and this time I popped out from under the jackhammer and stood up with water up to my eyeballs in my hat. After I quick shot from the free flow I informed topside that I was done cleaning and went back to work.  Of course once I got up on deck they asked me what was going on down there.  I supposed my gurgle-wheeze-cough-cough excuse was pretty transparent and once I told them what happened we all got a good laugh out of it. 

Tender No Nuts
Contributed by Charles Welch
Was on this job installing strain gauges on dual 4 inch pipe to try and find a little piggy that got lost.  Before we get too far, a strain gauge measures the micro expansion of metalor pipe  due to pressure.  These strain gauges were on metal banding the was 6 inches tall, with two bolts with nuts on either end.  They where smartly put together with the bolt head going through a hole in one end and all you have to do is loosen the nut and slip the nut end from a slot.  Hey smart thinking, seems like you can’t lose the hardware that way. What do you think the chances of putting the gauges on the piggy the first try, long shot you would think, well the dive crew should have played the lotto that day.  The tech for the strain gauges is swearing that a dumb diver can’t install his gauge and get the torque right.  Well let’s see in my bag of quals I have this one that says that I’m a expert at installing strain gauges.  The dive crew is calling the guy an idiot, tech says well they work up here on the surface.

Well apparently they don’t work in the water.  Just about every time that we found the pipes the two where touching so we had to use a wedge to get enough separation to install the gauges.  And as usual diver fashion we only knocked the wedges in far enough to get the gauges in if you nudge them with your foot. After a couple of days of just diving, jetting and installing the strain gauges, we decided to start diving tenders for a little more clean time.  Well we sent a tender down to take off the strain gauges, when he got down there to loosened the bolts he took the hardware completely off.  In the process he lost three of the four bolts and nuts.  He managed to get the one strain gauge with the one bolt and nut left on the retrieval pipe, when the supervisor asked if he had the gauges on the retrieval pipe, the tender responded, “I’ve only got one on the pipe”, sup, “well put the other one on so that we can get you off of bottom before you run out of time”, tender, “I can’t, get the other one on I have no nuts!”, then laughter in the dive shack, and the P.A. is then turned on for the rest of the dive crew outside, sup, “what was that?”, tender, “I’ve lost my nuts!”, now the whole boat is in tears of laughter, sup, “what do you mean you’ve lost your nuts, you had two when you went down”, tender, “I’ve lost the nuts to the bolts for the strain gauges”, sup (laughing), “well then just leave bottom”, no nuts did a short chamber run, so for the rest of the job and the ride home the tender is affectionately known as no nuts now.