Earning a living?

[ChrisA]

So are there actually full-time, living wage jobs available for divers outside of owning/operating an LDS and teaching classes here and there? Don't get me wrong, I'd really like to be an instructor one day, but what types of job opportunities are really available beyond that for someone who wants to be a diver full-time? Is there any such thing as a full time diver?

Any/all job descriptions more than welcome...

Yes I know of several divers who work full time. I've hire them to clean my boat. I have a 36ft sailboat and the bottom needs to be cleaned by a diver every month. The going rate is a buck a foot and it takes him about 40 minutes. A lot of these divers use a compressor that is mounted on a cart. Either that or you'd be using ten tanks a day. Max depth is about 6 feet so you have loads of NDL time every day.
Boat cleaning is the bottom end or entry level of comercial diving and you don't need any kind of certification as most work for them selves. A few are not even OW certified The next step up would be a diver who could do simple mechanical work like swapping out props on small power and sail boats. "real" comercial work, like underwater welding requires some serious training

 

[voop]

Yes I know of several divers who work full time. I've hire them to clean my boat. I have a 36ft sailboat and the bottom needs to be cleaned by a diver every month. The going rate is a buck a foot and it takes him about 40 minutes. A lot of these divers use a compressor that is mounted on a cart. Either that or you'd be using ten tanks a day. Max depth is about 6 feet so you have loads of NDL time every day.
Boat cleaning is the bottom end or entry level of comercial diving and you don't need any kind of certification as most work for them selves. A few are not even OW certified The next step up would be a diver who could do simple mechanical work like swapping out props on small power and sail boats. "real" comercial work, like underwater welding requires some serious training

It's a good idea to check the local regulations. I believe that e.g. the UK requires special clearing by the HSE for work in hyperbaric environments. In France, any kind of underwater activities are regulated and specific qualifications are required for the different possible UW-activities (even if you want to, legally, clean boats in 6 ft of water....) Quite likely, other territories may have other requirements....

 

[rmediver2002]

We have OSHA - 29 CFR and Coast Guard - 46 CFR, there is minimum standards for training, equipment, and manning.

Currently few investigations are conducted unless there has already been a casualty, unfortunately this leaves plenty of room for people to work in violation of the regulations. This is especially prevalent in Florida (most of the state seems to be dive qualified / and there are a ton of boats)

It is not possible for a legal commercial company to compete with a one man operation working in violation of the regulations (see above example $1 a foot for cleaning)

This is not commercial diving, not even close...

 

[ChrisA]

I posted the boat cleaning example. I've hired a lot of those one-man outfits at the going rate of a buck a foot. I doubt they really make a lliving. It's like working at McConalds cooking burgers but you get to be in the water. The regulations below are unenforcable for a one-man outfit. They MAY not even apply (I don't know) because I think they are requirements on an emplyer of divers. But in any case they are not absolutly enforced.
Even if the diver is killed who do they investigate, the whole company is gone, no one left to fine or sue

You are right. It is NOT really commercial diveing

That said, I now use a real commercial service to clean my boat. There is a company owwner. A girl who answers the phone and he hires a bunch of divers and makes
thier schedules. The owner divers of random boats his divers clean as a quality control.
For this level of service I pay $1.50 a foot The owner makes enough money to live near me and own his own place. His divers likely make a lot less then him

Going the other way there is at least one guy who's not even OW cert but does a few boats using some old used reg and a junk wetsuit.

We have OSHA - 29 CFR and Coast Guard - 46 CFR, there is minimum standards for training, equipment, and manning.

Currently few investigations are conducted unless there has already been a casualty, unfortunately this leaves plenty of room for people to work in violation of the regulations. This is especially prevalent in Florida (most of the state seems to be dive qualified / and there are a ton of boats)

It is not possible for a legal commercial company to compete with a one man operation working in violation of the regulations (see above example $1 a foot for cleaning)

This is not commercial diving, not even close...

 

[IslandHopper]

got2av8 .... there's a lot more money in "av8"-ing

The only non-tourguide, non-instructor diver I know, makes a decent living here on Guam by diving full-time. He is mostly an underwater mechanic. He works on ships (picture a 200 cargo vessel), he welds (docks, moorings, bouys, etc), he does toxic waste cleanup (busy commercial port has occasional spills).
This stuff is mostly manual labor ... lots of "work" ... but there are a few positions out there that a person can actually make a decent living this way. I DO know that he was military trained as a diver ... the industry MAY still look that way for well-trained/proven divers.

 

[rmediver2002]

I posted the boat cleaning example. I've hired a lot of those one-man outfits at the going rate of a buck a foot. I doubt they really make a lliving. It's like working at McConalds cooking burgers but you get to be in the water. The regulations below are unenforcable for a one-man outfit. They MAY not even apply (I don't know) because I think they are requirements on an emplyer of divers. But in any case they are not absolutly enforced.
Even if the diver is killed who do they investigate, the whole company is gone, no one left to fine or sue

You are right. It is NOT really commercial diveing

That said, I now use a real commercial service to clean my boat. There is a company owwner. A girl who answers the phone and he hires a bunch of divers and makes
thier schedules. The owner divers of random boats his divers clean as a quality control.
For this level of service I pay $1.50 a foot The owner makes enough money to live near me and own his own place. His divers likely make a lot less then him

Going the other way there is at least one guy who's not even OW cert but does a few boats using some old used reg and a junk wetsuit.

Well your current arrangement is certainly the better one, one of the problems with the one man outfits though. There was a case when OSHA went after the captain of a vessel for hiring "subcontractor" non-commercial divers to work for him, the example was not hull cleaning but sea urchin collection in Maine. When one of the divers died and an investigation was conducted they were able to show an employer / employee relationship between the diver and the captain.

http://www.oshrc.gov/decisions/html_1997/93-3359.html

 

[The Chairman]

You could always start a Scuba message board and REALLY go broke quick!

 

[sb_diver]

I know CA Dept. of Fish and Game has divers. They do fish counts and surveys. There's also quite a few commercial divers here in Santa Barbara, they're going for urchins and such, also Salvage work and then research diving is being done at my university. Some environmental consulting firms have divers from what I've heard too.