Technical Diving as a career?

[Graeme Fraser]

Did you ever go into commercial? Or do you know anyone that is/did commercial?

Not as a living, no. I do have my commercial ticket and do the occasional commercial diving job, but only for fun and a bit of extra pin money. Would I rely on it as my only source of income, no way, but then I'm much older than you and have a wife, mortgage, grown up kids and a dog to support.

As @100days-a-year says, the current job market for comm divers, particularly baby divers, may be pretty tough at the moment. Obviously training schools have a vested interest in giving you a positive spin, so I'd maybe make contact with a couple of contractors in the US and ask their opinion first.

 

[Superlyte27]

I am/was a commercial diver. My screen name was my favorite helmet. Yes, I misspelled intentionally.

So, some of what you read here is accurate. Some is not. School is expensive and the market is saturated. That is true.

I dove my very first day out of class and every day for two years. But, that was inland, not offshore. So, being a tender and not getting to dive, mostly untrue. Offshore oil rigs, it's more true.

If you become known as a non-drinker (super super rare) every nuke plant company will want you if you work hard. But, you gotta get known for that, like I was.

But, it's a horrible job if you want a family. It's feast or famine. You find yourself praying for high gas prices and frequent hurricanes. Nursing school is by far much cheaper, easier and lucrative.... And safer. I lost several friends to diving.

I'm glad I did it. But I wouldn't do it again.

 

[RyanT]

My parent's neighbor is a commercial diver in the oilfield in the Gulf of Mexico. He said he could make close to 100K per year "IF" he could get steady work. He said steady work is rare, so he probably makes less than half that most years.

 

[Superlyte27]

My parent's neighbor is a commercial diver in the oilfield in the Gulf of Mexico. He said he could make close to 100K per year "IF" he could get steady work. He said steady work is rare, so he probably makes less than half that most years.

There are A LOT of easier ways to make 100k per year, without going 35k into student loan debt.

 

[Ghost95]

A buddy of mine did the commercial thing for a while. He broke out after hurricane Katrina. Lots of salvage dives. It still took a while before he started getting the good dives with depth pay offshore. He said just take every dive unless you had a bad feeling about it and break out as fast as you can. Also he had to put lots of time in at the shop working on gear and stuff like that.

Allot of guys start their diving in a marsh somewhere in Louisiana blowing out mud from around well heads and pipelines in 6' of water. Those that stick with it can make pretty good money.

Another guy I know was a SAT diver. He's not diving now but still works as a consultant. He preferred the SAT diving to the bounce stuff. His reasoning was that for every dive there was only one compression and one decompression and that it was easier on your body. From my understanding, bounce guys can have bone and joint issues later in life and the SAT guys have neurological issues if either of them dive for too long. I don't know that to be fact though it's just what I heard.

All this is just info I've heard from friends or people I've worked around. The actual commercial guys here can give you a better idea of what's going on now.

 

[Ghost95]

A buddy of mine did the commercial thing for a while. He broke out after hurricane Katrina. Lots of salvage dives. It still took a while before he started getting the good dives with depth pay offshore. He said just take every dive unless you had a bad feeling about it and break out as fast as you can. Also he had to put lots of time in at the shop working on gear and stuff like that.

Allot of guys start their diving in a marsh somewhere in Louisiana blowing out mud from around well heads and pipelines in 6' of water. Those that stick with it can make pretty good money.

Another guy I know was a SAT diver. He's not diving now but still works as a consultant. He preferred the SAT diving to the bounce stuff. His reasoning was that for every dive there was only one compression and one decompression and that it was easier on your body. From my understanding, bounce guys can have bone and joint issues later in life and the SAT guys have neurological issues if either of them dive for too long. I don't know that to be fact though it's just what I heard.

All this is just info I've heard from friends or people I've worked around. The actual commercial guys here can give you a better idea of what's going on now.

 

[Doppler]

Something to also consider is that commercial diving might more truthfully be described as underwater construction work. The career ups and downs have been dutifully explained above, but you should also consider that diving (that's to say the underwater experience underwater you've accrued to this point) is most likely very, very different to the experience of standing on a scaffold at 20 metres with a shovel or welding lance in your hand.

 

[rddvet]

Growing up around commercial divers working rigs in louisiana I can say that your thoughts of it being a "fun" job may not be accurate. People I knew would say it's a cool job doing alot of interesting things, but it's also very hard work under even harder conditions and very few would have labeled their job as "fun". Many also ended up having to find a new career after 10-15 years due to the toll they're body paid.
Alot of them also said that commercial diving ends up making regular diving absolutely zero fun.
Obviously these are generalizations and there will be differences from diver to diver based on their experience and the jobs they had. The commercial divers I've known are doing alot of deep saturation dives doing some ridiculously hard and dangerous work.

 

[bakodiver391]

I've made money doing both technical diving and commercial diving, but that is more the exception than the rule, mostly because I am so geographically isolated that I am the only game in town. Also I was a fully qualified oilfield pipefitter and welder before I started diving, which has been incredibly helpful in commercial diving. Being paid for technical diving has mostly been scientific work or guiding.

 

[Scuba_Nick27]

I am/was a commercial diver. My screen name was my favorite helmet. Yes, I misspelled intentionally.

So, some of what you read here is accurate. Some is not. School is expensive and the market is saturated. That is true.

I dove my very first day out of class and every day for two years. But, that was inland, not offshore. So, being a tender and not getting to dive, mostly untrue. Offshore oil rigs, it's more true.

If you become known as a non-drinker (super super rare) every nuke plant company will want you if you work hard. But, you gotta get known for that, like I was.

But, it's a horrible job if you want a family. It's feast or famine. You find yourself praying for high gas prices and frequent hurricanes. Nursing school is by far much cheaper, easier and lucrative.... And safer. I lost several friends to diving.

I'm glad I did it. But I wouldn't do it again.

I really thank you for the clarification and advice.