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Getting in to commercial diving..

7K views 7 replies 5 participants last post by  diverstu 
#1 ·
Hi guys

i am serious about getting into the commercial diving sector and was looking at my options.

Was looking at doing the premium career package with Professional diving academy or the underwater centre, how hard is it to get into work once your are trained up without and actually work experience?

the other option was going into the navy as a mine clearance diver, will it be that much easier to then get into offshore commercial diving once you have been in the navy for a good few years or would you need to do some extra training to work on rigs etc?

Many thanks for any help
 
#4 ·
Well, if you’re in the U.K., it’s a lot simpler now, as fort William is now bust. There’s PDA in Dunoon, or there’s one down in Cornwall that sounds pretty good, run by North Sea guys off of RFA boats (google is your friend) and that’s it for HSE tickets nowadays. Further afield, the NYD in Norway is an excellent Air diving course, cheap, well run..only down side is the expense of living in Norway for 3 months, but that’s doable...Grant Jameson’s school in Durban seems to be up and running again, also good training...INPP in Marseille does Air courses, but I don’t know of many guys who go there, usually more sat courses.

As for getting work, well, who knows? There is still a massive over supply of divers worldwide, and rates overseas are mainly in the shitter, lots of unscrupulous bottom feeding companies paying little, (sometimes not at all) safety too expensive blah blah blah...basically no change there. The only thing to say is despite this, some new guys get work (most never do, though..) if you want it more than everyone else, and are willing to treat looking for work as a full time job, and are willing to turn up and learn with the right attitude, then there’s always the possibility you might get a job. Do your maths, and if you can’t afford to do your diving course, medical, first aid etc. and earn nothing while you look for work, then don’t do it. If you can throw the cash away, shrug it off and move on, then go for it...

As for being a CD, well, getting accepted onto that course is like winning the lottery, passing it doubly so, and you will learn all about explosives and how to get rid of them, which might get you into EOD diving that windfarms seems to generate more of nowadays, but let’s face it, you will be lucky to end up as a ship’s diver if you can get onto a diving course at all and while you will learn if you can dive or not, it doesn’t really give you too much of a head start if you want to do much other than ships husbandry. Certainly you won’t learn much about construction or offshore work. The Army Engineers will give you more of a background in surface supplied construction but you again have to pass the course first, and there’s always the possibility that you’ll end up diving in swamps in a war zone for very little money...

Plenty of navy or army guys work as divers, but very few of them joined up to be divers...most I know just did their diving course because it was the most expensive one they could get resettlement money for..! Bottom line is, why would you become a soldier if you wanted to be a truck driver? By the time you sign up, do basic training and (if you’re lucky) get to do what you wanted to do, you’ll have to do it for pennies in a war zone for years before you can get out, do civilian courses and start your career...whilst your school chum who did his HGV when you signed up will have been doing it for years for half decent money and might even end up employing you. If you want to be a sailor, sign up to the navy, if you want to be a diver, do a diving course....
 
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