Commercial Diving Help ?

[spongebobb]

is this bruno oo7 or is it mr garbutt ?

[bruno007]

This is bruno007 ..... alias Mr Garbutt!!!!!

[spongebobb]

thought so , not only handsome ! rectangle ! yellow ! but very very clever too ! ! ! did you get me txt ? c u 2moro oo7 ! ! ! god help me , anyway looks like two could now be three !!

[kirkwood1]

Originally Posted by A. Berk

Bruno and Kirkwood,

My advice is to treat your course as if it were a job (I realise you're paying for it) and work hard to impress the instructors. If you make the right impression they are more likely to mention you to a mate in the industry which might help with finding that all-important 1st job. Try to get plenty of power-tool work in, hydraulic impacts, grinders, chain-saws etc. 'Broco' cutting is worth getting reasonable at though I believe very little of this is offered on course - which is a shame. Don't sign-up for extras unless you can really afford to do them. Wet-sick welding is always touted as a 'must have', but it isn't. Save you money for the important courses like sea-survival/fi-fi and HUET.

Put a good concise CV together which shows; DOB, nationality, passport number, date of issue & expirey, date of diving medical and expirey, plus the other usual stuff. Don't put any recreational diving details on your CV - they won't count for anything and may work against you. Tag 2 or 3 passport sized photos to it with a paperclip. Bare in mind that such a short course will not turn you into a consumate professional diver - that will take years of working experience - so don't get cocky. Confident is good, cocky isn't!

Get a list of world-wide diving companies from the school - if they can't or won't provide such a list - kick-up sh1t! In fact you can get on to them right now and ask if they have a list, tell them you want to start sending 'feelers'. Then bash-out your CV to as many as you can. Also, make contact with as many working pros as you can... it helps to know someone in the know.

Lastly... good luck and safe diving,

Berko

Dear A. Berk

Thank you very much for the advice, I will begin asap on the CV construction etc.

Thanks to this forum i have also found out that there are two more lads on this site that will be joining me at PDA in jan so hopefully we can all share the info and help each other out.

Cheers again

Kirkwood

[A. Berk]

I hope you guys have a great course, work together and keep pushing each other - a little friendly competition is good - we do it all the time offshore. You are actually entering into a competitive career, there's competition for positions on contracts, competition to get into sat, competition to get on the next job etc. Its not suprising really that we have quite a few former sportsmen in the business; pro ice-hockey players, rugby league and union players (there's a former All Black sitting behind me as I write - Paul Koteka), motocycle racers and a heap more. The cameraderie is priceless - you'll enjoy it!

Berko

[kirkwood1]

Berko,

Thats a good work ethic, One question though, is it essential to complete the fi fi and Survival course before i start in jan??? noticed a few of the other lads will being doing that pre course but i dont reckon i have the finances to do this.......will this heavily restrict me after the course with regards to finding work or will there be enough jobs for those of us that have only done the Pro-Suba, Surface suppllied and top up course??? with a first aid course threw in there????

Thanks again for your time

Chris

[stew]

evening gents,
i left the PDA 3 weeks ago having done the full part 1 & wet-bell.
one thing i did learn about getting work is sending your CV out by email is next to useless unless you follow it up with a phone call.
i send out around 100+ CV's the week before i finished (i didn't phone any) & got one phone call back.
fortunately for me i finished at PDA on the Friday & started working for a marina company on the Monday.

everyone wants to work off-shore & make big money...& everyone thinks they will finish school & walk in to a job like that.
bad news, it won't happen unless you have some inshore experience or know someone who will get you there.
my experience of attempting to gain work in the middle east (as its easier to get in to than the north sea) has been rather thwarted, most of them are looking for at least 2 years experience off-shore or 3-4 years inshore.
once you leave college you will find a whole raft of tickets you wish you had. (3.1u, offshore survival/fire fighting, wet welding, rope access etc.)
none of them are cheap.

most civil work is planned for the better weather time of year, so October-March is a difficult time to gain work for a newbie baby diver, all the experienced guys are doing what work there is.

i wish you both good luck with your course, your making the right choice

[spongebobb]

stew , hows tricks , hope work is a plenty and you are keeping at it , seems u are hitting a brick wall offshore , it seems the trick is to keep hounding employers and not to give up trying ! hoping to find the work will be picking up by the time we finnish our course end of march , feelers are out already ! any tips from experience so far ? stay in touch stew speak to you soon

[stew]

hey spongebob....
top tip... if you can tie knots, tie lots...
if you can't... learn..

i can tie some knots.. never much an issue on land even in front of people.
put me under water when the pressure is on & it becomes 10 times harder to complete.

i made a couple of videos when i was at college, you can view them here...
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

[A. Berk]

Originally Posted by stew

hey spongebob....
top tip... if you can tie knots, tie lots...
if you can't... learn..

Rigging and seamanship are part of the 'commie' trade and the most important hitches to know are:

1. The Bowline - make sure you can tie it both directions, 'away' from you and 'toward' you.

2. Round-turn and two half-hitches.

3. The Rolling Hitch, getting the direction of 'pull' correct.

4. The Sheet Bend and Double Sheet Bend.

5. The Clove Hitch.

6. The Hunter Knot - this may take some looking-up but is worth it as its a zillion times better than a Reef Knot and can be released easily even after heavy strain.

Its also worth learning the two most common splices, Eye-splice and Back-splice.

On a job a couple of years ago one young air-diver said that he didn't need to know any knots... he was laughed out of the tea-shack. He now works in a dive company's office and still can't do a knot - he was right all along!

Regards,

Berko