Commercial Course No 59 week 2

Joachim searchs in the nil visibility pit

Monday 18th January

Today is our first major exam. It’s the hardest of the sectional exams – Physiology. This exam should take about 2 1/2 hours however we tend not to limit the time so that we do get the best we can from each student. This time the exam takes about 3 hours and as we believe in immediate feedback the exam is marked and each answer discussed to ensure complete understanding. The good news – all students achieved a pass with the majority of marks in the high 80’s. The day finished with paperwork and a lecture on Air Lifting.

Tuesday 19th January

Peter conducts grid mesh search

'The Pit'. 'The Pit' is the first of our diving locations and chosen for its depth range from 1- 16m all easily accessed with a walk in entry straight off the bank. It’s a very realistic dive site as its cold and subject to silting. The students are given a thorough debriefing on ‘The Pit’ and then start gearing up for their first dive. Dive 1 is a skills checkout dive – where the instructors get into the water with the students to assess the students basic skills, also a great shakedown for students with some not having dived it dry before. Dive 2 is made up by a number of standby diver drills. Students are to perform a number of rescues including an entrapped/entangled diver where the diver is actually tied off and must be cut free before being brought to the surface.

Wednesday 20th January

Diver conducts search in the nil visibility pit

Its time to practice some of the new skills we have learnt in theory sessions. We start the diving today in ‘the pit creek’ – a shallow, nil visibility creek near our main training area. Its only claim to fame is that it has absolutely no visibility at all and lots of snags. The idea of this session is for students to gain confidence and ability in working in true nil visibility. Divers complete two search patterns, a grid mesh search for lost keys and a parallel bank search for supposed murder weapons – a knife and a handgun. Team 2 does their second rescue assessment in the main training area.

Thursday 21st January

Jon helps Luke set up

Back in the classroom and we run through the risk assessment process, learning how to identify hazards on any dive site and how to rate and deal with these. As part of this we spent a considerable amount of time learning about a commercial divers biggest fear – suction.

Friday 22nd January

Colin gives the thumbs up

Today was another practical day at "The Pit" our local diving location. It was our first day using full-face masks. We did an introduction to the Exo, Neptune and Aga facemasks. The whole set up took some time as we hooked up comms lines and panels. Now this is what commercial diving is all about, and really makes the difference between a recreational diver and a working professional. Although it takes a bit to get used to, having communication with the surface is superb. We finished our stand-by diver drills, did some air lifting and a pipeline survey. Lots of new toys, some great challenges and some great fun!