So if i wanted a job as a diver....

[Dashrynn]

What does the job market look like? Does anyone know how it is for commercial diver's?

[Grateful Diver]

What does the job market look like? Does anyone know how it is for commercial diver's?

I think there are limited opportunities locally, although the department I work for does hire commercial divers to service and maintain the City's wastewater outfall lines (e.g. the "pooper pipeline" some of y'all enjoy diving) ... you're more likely to find jobs in places where there are oil rigs or big construction projects like the recently-completed Narrows bridge.

Also keep in mind that commercial diving isn't like scuba diving ... it's more like underwater construction work. My understanding, having discussed it with a couple commercial divers in the past, is that you can expect to spend at least the first couple of years doing topside support (relatively low-paying jobs) before getting enough seniority to actually start doing the higher-paying underwater jobs.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[ArcticDiver]

Know a couple folks in the business. According to them the diving is secondary, using the tools is primary. As Bob mentioned it is underwater construction and maintenance with diving being just a means of getting to and staying at the job. The job is often in some pretty unpleasant conditions with significant health and safety risks. But, under the right circumstances the paycheck can be pretty good, or so they say.

[defied]

One of the biggest syaing is the industry is "You don't have to know how to swim. That is just how you get to the job."

Which means, if you can walk upright, you can follow a line down to the job, drag your tools in, and get to work.

Now that being said... when you're standing on the bottom a hundred plus feet down, and can see forever while waiting for more Broco rods..... well that's just priceless...

D(B)

[CaptnJack]

Expect commercial dive schools to significantly overhype the pay scale.

[Dashrynn]

One of the biggest syaing is the industry is "You don't have to know how to swim. That is just how you get to the job."

Which means, if you can walk upright, you can follow a line down to the job, drag your tools in, and get to work.

Now that being said... when you're standing on the bottom a hundred plus feet down, and can see forever while waiting for more Broco rods..... well that's just priceless...

D(B)

Sounds awesome...I love blowing bubbles, and money is nice too....so hey why not?

[defied]

"Why not?"

Ah, the REAL question!!!

Divers Institute of Technology costs close to 20K now.
They say starting out as a diver, you make close to 70K plus a year.
That's if you're a diver, not a tender, which you start out as for a couple of years.
The salary quoted is also if you are offshore 365 days.

Working in the shop is a good ol' boys scenario, so until they know you, expect to be out cutting grass.
I had to jump in to it, and drive a forklift loading gear on to a semi, repair a hyperbaric chamber, and two radios, while finishing up yard duties in one day to prove to them that I could do serious work. The next day I was repairing a super charged Diesel Jet pump with a buddy. That was fun work compared to clearing brush.

Forget about any decent kind of life outside of diving. You'll be offshore for most of it.

56 hours workdays may not be allowed anymore, but the definitely happen.

DIT back in the day issues bunk certificates. I had received my Scuba Diving card from them, and it was a DIT Commercial Scuba certification. The problem is DIT was not insured for this type of certification, and most dive shops that adhere to the rules, will not recognize that certification as a valid dive card. So effectively, money was spent on an piece of garbage in laminate.


So, keep those in mind. 0]

D(B)

[Dashrynn]

"Why not?"

Ah, the REAL question!!!

Divers Institute of Technology costs close to 20K now.
They say starting out as a diver, you make close to 70K plus a year.
That's if you're a diver, not a tender, which you start out as for a couple of years.
The salary quoted is also if you are offshore 365 days.

Working in the shop is a good ol' boys scenario, so until they know you, expect to be out cutting grass.
I had to jump in to it, and drive a forklift loading gear on to a semi, repair a hyperbaric chamber, and two radios, while finishing up yard duties in one day to prove to them that I could do serious work. The next day I was repairing a super charged Diesel Jet pump with a buddy. That was fun work compared to clearing brush.

Forget about any decent kind of life outside of diving. You'll be offshore for most of it.

56 hours workdays may not be allowed anymore, but the definitely happen.

DIT back in the day issues bunk certificates. I had received my Scuba Diving card from them, and it was a DIT Commercial Scuba certification. The problem is DIT was not insured for this type of certification, and most dive shops that adhere to the rules, will not recognize that certification as a valid dive card. So effectively, money was spent on an piece of garbage in laminate.


So, keep those in mind. 0]

D(B)

im military so i get the gi bill...and im already on my way to becoming and aow with ssi and maybe dive con..(I am entertaining the idea)

I may be a smaller guy but i have worked 12 hour days with my uncle who is a slave driver! He owns a logging business so fixing hyd lines and diesel engines was a day by day by week thing.

since i have scuba c card already do i HAVE to get there scuba card? I have been debating whether or not to get out of the military or stay in.

[scottsax]

Doesn't the Navy employ divers? Seems to me there'd be some pretty cool opportunities out there in your "other" uncle's company...

[mz53480]

... I have been debating whether or not to get out of the military or stay in...

Stay in.
Where else can you punch out after 20yrs, get full retiremnt,...yada yada.
(Besides, you can be all you can be, or be one of the few, the proud...or aim high....or accelerate your ride).
Going from mil to civ drove me crazy for about 3yrs. :angry:
(noone swears at coworkers? are you kidding me? tough up!)

[defied]

im military so i get the gi bill...and im already on my way to becoming and aow with ssi and maybe dive con..(I am entertaining the idea)

I may be a smaller guy but i have worked 12 hour days with my uncle who is a slave driver! He owns a logging business so fixing hyd lines and diesel engines was a day by day by week thing.

since i have scuba c card already do i HAVE to get there scuba card? I have been debating whether or not to get out of the military or stay in.

I'm military as well, and I'm still paying student loans on that school...
GI Bill covered living at that point, not school. That school is also 8 hours a day, so having a part time job is possible, but hard.

I had already been certified since 1990, so I was doing odd jobs around the marina's. There are a lot of people doing odd jobs around the marinas now, and it can be tough to find that work.

It will be the hardest work you've ever performed (I worked on a flight deck and hangar bay at least 18 hours a day in the Nav, and that was nothing compared to this), and it is a great job. Being a smaller guy is not a bad thing either. (tNwss)

I believe you will have to go through the course, unless they decide to get rid of it all together (I've heard rumors, but they are just that, rumors).

D(B)

[CaptnJack]

I am not sure you age, but if you have already been in the military for awhile you might not have that many functional years as a commercial diver available. Working in the industry much past 35yo seems rare.

[defied]

I am not sure you age, but if you have already been in the military for awhile you might not have that many functional years as a commercial diver available. Working in the industry much past 35yo seems rare.

Hehehe, that's about when you become a dive supervisor, and live in the shack...

D(B)

[Dashrynn]

D(B)[/quote]

Doesn't the Navy employ divers? Seems to me there'd be some pretty cool opportunities out there in your "other" uncle's company...

I thought about that too....But i have doubts regarding the whole crazy pt thing ( i think they go thru some of the seals training.

im military so i get the gi bill...and im already on my way to becoming and aow with ssi and maybe dive con..(I am entertaining the idea)

I have been debating whether or not to get out of the military or stay in.

I'm military as well, and I'm still paying student loans on that school...
GI Bill covered living at that point, not school. That school is also 8 hours a day, so having a part time job is possible, but hard.


D(B)

The new gi bill is supposed to give E5 bah and pay more on schools . So i would only have to pay for my car and motorcycle and misc things. (2 more years left in the navy )

Oh and im 22 years old

[Mattleycrue76]

Just curious - what sort of job do you have in the Navy that allows you this much time to post?

[Dashrynn]

Just curious - what sort of job do you have in the Navy that allows you this much time to post?

My primary or alternative job (job im doing now) I manage paperwork and paint jets. inbetween letting paint dry and such i post. This week has been slowwwwwww

What i was trained for...aviation electronic technician...what i do...paint jets...

[60south]

What kind of commercial diving do you want to do? Going to commercial diving school may not be necessary for some types of jobs.

Many people around here (Port Townsend) clean hulls, recover anchors, slurp out geoducks, and install anodes. Very few of them have any kind of commercial cert. Some just have an open water c-card.

I was hired as a commercial diver for a military base, overseas. I have no commercial credentials, and they didn't even ask for a c-card. (!) The actual diving part was fun: recovering torpedoes, installing sonars on submarines, etc. Even jumping out of helicopters. But there wasn't enough of it, so in between jobs we cleaned up toxic waste and swept the floors. It didn't pay squat.

So anything is possible... Just don't expect to get rich.

PS - My avatar picture is me waiting for a test torpedo launch from the USS Cole. (No, they were not shooting at me. At least, I don't think so.) My job was to put a cargo strap around the expended torpedo and help tow it back to shore. Wheee.

[defied]

I want that job... Torpedo recovery.... 0]


I've actually helped find objects around marina's recently, and for an air bottles worth of my time, I get paid more than I did in that same amount of time doing almost the same thing in the gulf. I could see it becoming a lucrative business if you have the right partners, but there are quite a few people running around doing it solo now.

You won't get rich, but it will support you, and your habit as long as you have a fall back job. 0]

D(B)

[selkie]

As defied has already stated and to quote Al Nesbit “Diving ain’t the job it is only a way to get to work”. Being on the bottom and seeing forever is not common. Most of the dives you will be a glorified underwater ditch digger. That means when you get to the bottom you will tell topside to turn on the pumps so you can hand dredge. Now that you are dredging there is no visibility and you can’t hear anything because it is so loud. When you get to were your pipe crosses another you get to start stacking cement bags to separate the pipes and hold them in place. We dropped five pallets of cement bags in a cargo net on a diver that thought we said the bags were on the bottom when what we said is the bags had entered the water. Doing 5 or more hours of surface decompression in a deck chamber with a broken arm and leg sucks to say the least. He was lucky he was wearing a Miller helmet rather the fiberglass KMB or he would have been dead.

Welding a hot tap into a pipeline can be fun also. Wet welds underwater are only temporary so good welds must be done in a dry environment. This means the diver goes to the pipe and crawls under the dry chamber placed over the pipe and filled with argon. The diver does his or her welding in the argon environment. However the chamber must be constantly monitored and vented to prevent the build up of O2 from the divers exhaust. Failure of the topside techs to keep the welding environment well ventilated will result in an explosion. Dive companies are for profit and argon is expensive. How close do you think they run to edge on venting and are you willing to bet your life? Don’t worry about welding hot taps unless you have years of welding experience topside.

Being a small person you may get to crawl in pipes and inspect or replace zincs. I worked with a guy that had done a job in New Jersey replacing the zincs in the outfall pipe for a chemical plant. The company assured the dive contractor that the chemicals had been flushed out of the pipe however my friend’s skin developed rashes, he had head aches, and his nails got soft.

Commercial divers are very much at the mercy of the topside crew. First, commercial divers do not track anything about their dives that is all controlled topside. Most of the time the diver is working by feel in a dynamic moving environment with pieces of steel that weigh tons. We worked for a barge captain who thought he knew best and would move the crane the diver was using to hang conductors (a conductor is the bracket that holds the pipe to the leg of an oil platform). Luckily our divers never got caught in a pinch point.

I went to DIT then worked in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). I am not telling you not to do it. I just think you should have a clue what the job is. You also need to be aware that most US dive school certifications are not recognized in other first or sometimes second world countries. If you thought it would be a cool travel around the world job don’t go to a US school. As defied also said you will have a hard time planning a life outside of work. Divers are on call 24/7 and you do not know how long the job will last or when the next call will come so you can not pass up a call if you want to pay your bills.
I am sure if you asked defied would have plenty of stories to swap also.

Good Luck

[defied]

Like a 13 ton cable reel that I had to tie in to a craner with a 1 ton head, in heavy winds, flopping around on the boat INSIDE of the carriage that houses the wheel? I can guarantee you never seen a fat man move as fast as I was that night. I'd bounce out of that carriage through a hole two time smaller than me like an octo, and then you'd hear the loud "KLANG" of the crane head bouncing off of thick steel, right where my a$$ was standing a quarter second prior.

Yeah, one very popular job is jet blasting pipeline in an 18fsw mudhole for about 30 miles. Can't see a damn thing.
Let's see what else.... Crane operators are shite, so make sure they are fed well, and awake when they get up there.

Heavy seas are awesome. I was tying down a compressor to the deck, and every swell had to hold my breath for ten seconds as I went about 8 feet underwater, still tying or ratcheting line.

A buddy of mine got dragged off the deck, and in to the ocean, and the next swell that came in over us, he was sitting in the crane chair about ten feet above the deck. That was a lucky mo-fo.

56 hours blowing mud off of a can leg, inspecting it, and dropping it back in to the ocean to get coved in mud again.

penetration into these steel caves to make sure everything is intact, and joints are still good. (Allthough that was fun!)

Or how about the many hours on the beach due to heavy wind conditions (Hurricanes, or tropical storms) preventing any dive boat from going to work? That's how I got addicted to Buffy: The Vampire Slayer marathons...


But at the same time...
110 fsw, burning an old caisson out of it's hole, getting beat up by a territorial grouper, being able to see all the way up, tender smoking on the deck, 7-8ft barracuda completely enamored with my bubbles.

7ffw burning out 3/4 inch steel sheet pilings while a 5 foot baby gator sleeps on my legs (Broco's get warm in standing water).

365fsw, deep blue, near midnight, sitting on a leg, grit blasting for NDT, and a school of shark swimming past you above...

in water deco in said school of shark (I thought they hated bubbles)... didn't last long.. one bump, and you find yourself clamoring up your own hose until you reach the ladder. Sur 'D' O2 is a good thing at that point. The look on your tenders face to see you topside...priceless...

There is some awesome and romance if you're in love with the Ocean, but it can be few and far between sometimes.

Two lead tenders (myself and a buddy) were the last to leave a rig by basket, and as we were over 150 feet in the air, came to the realization that the boat left us..... then had to hang on to that basket until the boat came back 50 minutes later.... yeah.... fun.... That's why I'm a diver, and not a pilot... no beuno on the heights thing...


D(B)

[spatman]

selkie and defied, thanks for those stories. great reads for desk jockeys like me who will likely never be in situations like that.

[pensacoladiver]

Awesome stories.

There is obviously a huge difference between diving for the fun of it and grinding out a living by relying on it.

Fortunately, the Navy alows me to do the former.

[defied]

Oh, and I forgot the biggest one.

I fell in love with a girl, and she wouldn't have me because I would always love the ocean more than her.... Sigh... those were her words. She didn't even ask me.

But then again being a man-whore, I've been told I fall in love easily.

D(B)

EDIT: Is it BAD when your current wife tells you that?

[Sockmonkey]

EDIT: Is it BAD when your current wife tells you that?

I'll let you know after another few years of marriage... but I've heard that a few times before... last year as we were packing to move to Seattle... and then again a few months later packing for HI.

-Eric

[Dashrynn]

Thanks everyone for your inputs! I think for right now ill just stick with rec diving and maybe some tech diving afterwhile!

The stories are awesome! It just fires up this young guys passion for exploration and doing unnatural things out of humans natural boundaries!