At the ADCI Meeting, New Orleans:

Mike Brown, Vice President Epic Divers, has been elected  President of the ADCI.

Says Mike to Offshore Diver:

If I'm gonna be ruled by a damn committee,

I'm gonna be on the committee.

Congrats Mike.

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I came across this when I was going through my file cabinet, pretty entertaining. I don't know if it's really the kind of thing you want for the site, but I got a laugh out of it, thought other people might too. Hope everything's going well out there, I drug up from the GOM and started working up here in the northwest for Northwest Underwater. I get to spend a lot more time at home.

Thanks DG. Good luck up north. We'll keep a hot water machine on for ya.

Fact - Not on your Dive Supervisors Test: If you are diving from a Licensed Vessel you don’t come under OSHA Diving CFR’s. You come under Coast Guard CFRs and there is NO three man dive team allowed!

Opinion: Mine, what’s yours?

Joe Bates     Roy Gray     Frank Hale     Fred Collins     Charley Cockershell     Frank De La Oliva

Who are these guys and what do they have to do with my dive station?

Diver's oaky. Got a serious bell ringing, but he's fine. Didn't have to go that way; explosion was enough to knock him out for a few seconds.

Download a PDF of this SafetyGram

So here's the thing. Cal Dive has provided this SafetyGram to Offshore Diver and Longstreath as well as going the IMCA / ADCI route. They're thinking its about time to put this info out to someone other than the suits. And we're thinking yeah, sure is. Well done Cal Dive. How many times you heard a diving contractor say "We had an accident. Read this." Not too damn often.

The safetygram is thin on exactly how this happened, process-wise. The Findings section is a reinforcement of things we all know. So draw your own conclusions. But its a good reminder that there are no shortcuts.

It's good to see a Major release something relevant this soon after an accident.

And very good you are still with us, T.  That's the best part.

A discussion about this article has been started here in the Divers Forums.

SEMS is here. This is going to affect us all. If you don't know what SEMS is, you soon will whether you read this or not. But if you read this you'll be smarter, sooner.

30 CFR Part 250 Subpart S – Safety and Environmental Systems (SEMS)

That is the question. SEMS probably means very little to the working commercial diver. But all offshore diving companies have been affected, and to a greater degree the Operators who work the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Might be wise to read enough of this article to understand what SEMS is basically about.

Although the Safety and Environmental Management System (SEMS) has been around since 1990, it has only carried the force of law since October 15, 2010. I am sure the BP spill and general finger pointing that followed caused the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Enforcement (BOEMRE) to immediately accelerate the regulatory process related to the SEMS rule making. The SEMS standard had been in the works for some time, the spill made it easy to make it law. I opine that much strategic political thinking went into the entire process to avoid criticism. Criticism still simmering related to the Government’s response to Katrina and the resulting fall out from FEMA’s performance during that crisis. In any case, we now have SEMS.

SEMS is a process for coordinating OCS oil and gas operations to ensure there is recognition that worker safety and pollution control are largely dependent upon proper human behavior. Essentially, SEMS is a flavor of the Behavior Based Safety accident prevention model companies that work for the majors already observe.

Into the Lion's Mouth
The Story of the Wildrake Diving Accident

Michael Smart

445 pages

I was sent a copy of this book to read and comment on before publishing. To be honest, it is one of the most incredible books on diving that I have read. The write up that describes the book on the website is as follows:

On August 7, 1979, Richard Walker was in one of his melancholy moods. Married and the father of a 15 month-old daughter, he was thousands of miles away inside a saturation chamber on board a diving ship called the Wildrake in the middle of the North Sea. Lying on his bunk just before his next dive he began a note in his diary:

7 August - On location at Thistle. The boat heaves a lot. Roger says there are conger eels all over. We will find out today. Poor topside management. Two guys in here are both nuts (ungood nuts) and dear god, I want out...