The United States Navy has accepted The Divers Association invitation to have a liaison arrangement on diver safety. Mr. Michael S. Dean, Deputy Supervisor of Salvage and Diving, Director of Ocean Engineering, is now that liaison. I will quote Mr. Dean. “Like your Association, we remain committed to the safety of all divers and I believe that our cooperation will benefit Navy and commercial divers worldwide.”

One of our North American Representatives Gary Young: Former Navy Diver, Commercial Surface/Saturation Supervisor and Commercial Dive Instructor, will liaison with Mr. Dean.

We want to thank the United States Navy for this opportunity.

We here at OD would like to commend the Divers Association for the progress they have made since they got going last year. Looking forward to  great works in the future.

Click here to read this announcement on the DAI website

Curious about this new outfit - the Diver's Association International? We are too. Offshore Diver has been aware of the DAI since it's beginning but we haven't had a chance to dig in too much. The current president, John C Roat, wrote a column for Offshore Diver for years. It was called The Roat Deal. John was instrumental in creating the Diver's Association and gave up his column in order to better focus on the DAI. He's been a busy cat since then.  We finally caught up to him last week.

Voting is in the Divers Forum here. You can read all the entries here. The vote will close at the end of February. Winner gets a hunderd bucks and notoriety of winning first ever OD Sea Story Contest.

Feb 5th - Late entry arrived today. See the Monkfish story below.

All in all, the hunting had been good. I do believe we'd been saving the chief cook and bottle washer good coin on main courses and it was fresh, not frozen. In days gone by, in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, fish did what their mommies said; they went to school. By the thousands. They needed this schooling, as the "Cod Class" were some slooow and dumb students. My favorite "ruler" to chastise the errant student was a stainless rod about 5 feet long, with a wicked barb on the business end. 2W's enshrined it, I heard.

We where installing clamps and risers mid-water on a platform that was to be tied in to a sub-sea valve assembly. The water was pristine and visibility was excellent. I had only been in saturation once before so I was the new guy, and fun is often had at the expense of the new guys. Day three, I was locked out, tightening the bolts on the clamps that hold the riser pipe into the leg of the platform. The saturation technician and diving supervisor who operate various systems on the bell where having a ball, turning the external bell lights on and off, on and off, and dimming and brightening the lights on my dive-helmet as well. This is very distracting to someone who is trying to work, and showed that day to have unforeseen consequences.

In the Fall of 1977 I was diving for Taylor aboard BAR 280 in 150FSW somewhere near High Island.  We were making multiple passes burying a pipeline and had been  down for weather.As the weather calmed one night I was up to set the machine.  I was standing in the ditch on the pipeline maneuvering the barge plum over head.  As I began to lower the machine into the ditch I was instantly sucked up into the airlift.

There I was... North sea, 1976. Working on the lay barge 323, Brown & Root, Taylor Diving.

We had a 36” spool piece running the entire length of the barge, 400’. All 6 davits hooked up. It made a 90 degree bend at the stern of the barge. That section that ran all the way across the stern and was 2-parted with center stern anchor cable. After that run it made another 90 degree turn, now heading aft again for about 60’. That section was held up by the big crane.

There I was... as a young tender around 2001 working for Aquatica.  It was a early morning on the back deck of the DSV Mr Jim. As a tender it was also my duties to secure the vessel to the platform so we could begin our day of diving.