
What no one tells you before you become a deep sea diver - charlieirish
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/10-things-no-one-tells-you-before-you-become-a-deep-sea-diver/
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DyslexicAtheist
I used to work as a deep sea saturation diver with various companies in South
East Asia. Mostly based out of Singapore and jobs in the South China Sea but
also Japan, Indonesia, etc.

Almost accurate description of what live is like as a deep sea diver. Though
they don't live "down there" in tiny decompression chambers as the article
claims. The chambers are on the surface (on-board a rig, a ship etc).

~~~
schoen
> Though they don't live "down there" in tiny decompression chambers as the
> article claims. The chambers are on the surface (on-board a rig, a ship
> etc).

I had never heard of this before; that sounds like a lot of uncomfortable
strictures to follow for a long time! The Wikipedia article on saturation
diving says that underwater living chambers are also an option, but seems to
suggest that they're mainly used by scientific research divers (I'm not sure
why that would be).

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
these underwater chambers have been used in the 70ies 80ies afaik. but I
personally have never seen one nor heard of anyone who had the opportunity to
work in one (and most of the guys out there were in the early 50ies while I
was very young in comparison). Not saying they didn't exist but their use was
limited. Because "wet welding" or any type of work that requires a mechanical
engineering effort carried out by a diver is usually not as solid/sound as
welding the parts on the surface (out of the water). The welding seam produced
by a diver is usually of lower quality (even if the diver is really well
trained in welding impurities of the water are reducing the quality of the
weld). Also many places where one would have to wet-weld it is too deep (even
for sat-diving), so they would use ROV's anyway. There has to be a very
special reason why one would have a team of divers do all this at the depth.
Certainly not in the oil/gas industry.

EDIT: clarification, I mention welding because welding/cutting (e.g. an oil
pipeline) was usually a scenario where one would create such chambers at
subsea level in order to isolate the under water part of the pipe in a dry
"bubble" within this structure to repair it.

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effie
> * isolate the under water part of the pipe in a dry "bubble" within this
> structure to repair it*

Is that even possible? How would one isolate big pipe under such great
pressures?

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mchahn
The golden gate bridge and many others were built by working in dry "bubbles".
An inverted dome on the sea floor was filled with air so the workers could
work on the seafloor pretty much the same as on the ground outside. I don't
know how they worked under that air pressure. I guess they had to decompress
like any diver.

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onetimePete
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin)

If there is a accident, it will be over quick.

If there ever is a mars colony, this is what is its going to look like.

~~~
kennon42
Except that going from 9 atmospheres to 1 is way more dramatic than from ~1 to
~0.

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DyslexicAtheist
here is a nice explanation of what deep sea sat diving is about.
[http://www.slideshare.net/KevinDuck/simple-30154573](http://www.slideshare.net/KevinDuck/simple-30154573)

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kylegordon
Ever since hearing about the Byford Dolphin accident, deep sea diving has
always had a special place of respect in my mind.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_acc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident)

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Youpinadi
Sounds like a pretty hard job... How much a deep sea diver makes?

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osxrand
From the article : "Saturation divers are incredibly well paid (around £1,500
per day), but the risk they are exposed to reflects the rationale behind the
pay structure."

~~~
_JamesA_
To put that in context it's in the same range, maybe even less, of a decent
contract programmer/consultant billing $150 - $200 USD per hour.

