evan_anderson•5d agoProlific Poster

Serious question, sat diving vs bell diving for deep repairs?

I've been going back and forth on this since a job three years ago off the coast of Louisiana. We had to fix a pipeline at 250 feet, and the supervisor wanted us on a saturation system, but the client pushed for bounce dives with surface decompression. My buddy Jake did the bell dive last month on a similar depth repair near Corpus Christi, said the bottom time felt way safer and he wasn't as beat up after. But I've heard from old timers that sat diving can mess with your head after a week, and the cost for chartering a dive support vessel is insane, like 50 grand a day easy. Last week I did a bounce dive on a failed anode at 180 feet, and my nitrogen hit me harder than I expected, took two hours to feel right again. Which setup do you guys trust for deeper stuff, and what's your call when the client wants the cheaper option?

2 comments

2 Comments

mary6145d ago

Old Hank used to tell me about sat diving in the North Sea back in the 80s, said they'd come up and forget their own kids' names for a few days (which is funny until it's not). I'd take the bell system any day over getting bent at 200 feet just to save the company a few bucks on a support vessel.

mia_anderson5d ago

Does it ever feel like that's just the way the whole world works now @mary614? Push everything to the limit until something breaks, then fix it just enough to keep going. I see it in my own neighborhood too, people rushing around forgetting their own basic stuff because they're so tapped out.