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An old diver in Morgan City taught me to check my own gear before every splash
Back in 2009 I was working a dock job in Morgan City, Louisiana, and an old timer named Ray was on the crew. I was maybe 24 and thought I knew everything about my hat and umbilical setup. One morning Ray watched me rush my pre-dive check and just said, "Son, the water don't care how fast you are." He made me sit there and walk through every seal, every hose, every gauge with him twice. Took an extra 15 minutes and I was fuming at the time. Two days later a different guy on the crew splashed with a bad O-ring and had to bail out at 40 feet. Ray never said I told you so, he just handed me a wrench and told me to keep checking my own stuff because nobody else on the barge would. I still do that slow walk around my gear before every dive, and I've caught at least three issues over the years that could have gone bad. Any of you still run into guys like Ray on jobs, or is that kind of mentoring mostly gone now?
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ward.jamie6d ago
My buddy Dave worked a pipeline job out of Port Fourchon around 2015 and had a guy named Curtis on his crew do the same thing. Dave rushed a reg check one morning and Curtis pulled the hose off his own hat and made Dave watch him inspect it inch by inch, said it takes as long as it takes. Three weeks later Dave found a pinhole in a low pressure line during that slow check that would have blown at depth. Guys like that are still out there but you have to be lucky enough to land on a crew with one.
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