This is the climax of air diver training. It takes one week following successful
completion of the Surface Diving course. Some students return from working as
a Surface Diver in inshore waters to take this course as stepping stone to working
offshore worldwide.
This course is the final step to full air diving qualification and is designed
for divers wishing to work offshore down to 50msw/165fsw and includes the use
of Hot Water Suits and Wet Bells.
This equipment provides a professional and practical way for divers to enter
the water in potentially rough conditions, or a height above the water which
may be found on an oil platform or diving vessel.
Two divers can be lowered into the water and exit from the wetbell to the worksite.
The clear acrylic dome of the wetbell provides a reserve of breathing gas and
psychological 'safe haven', but it is practically there to be a holding point
for in-water decompression stops controlled by the surface dive team.
Hotwater suits are used as an introduction to equipment required for long periods
of work in cold water conditions. A warm diver is also less susceptible to decompression
problems.
Surface Decompression
This is a technique for working divers which permits the diver to undergo decompression
in the relative calm and warmth of a dry decompression chamber situated close
to the dive site.
The diver, requiring a known decompression period calculated by the Dive supervisor,
surfaces, removes diving equipment, is rapidly transferred to the diving chamber
and recompressed to the previous working depth.
Against established decompression tables the diver is then decompressed in the
dry, transferring to BIBS (built in breathing systems) masks and breathing pure
oxygen in the final stages before surfacing.
© Copyright 2005 Professional Diving
Academy Ltd.
Registered Diving Contractor: HSE2497
Unit 19, Sandbank Business Park, Sandbank, Dunoon, Argyll, PA23 8PB
Tel: 01369 701 701 Fax: 01369 701 700
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