Appreciation post: That crazy job off the coast of Louisiana in 2019

I was working on a pipeline repair near Port Fourchon back in 2019 and we had a 10-foot swell roll in out of nowhere. We lost half our day because the boat couldn't hold position, and the tender almost got his line cut. That moment taught me to always check the extended forecast myself instead of just trusting the captain's word. I also started packing extra backup regs after watching a buddy's primary fail on a 60-foot descent. Anyone else have a single job that made you change your whole gear setup?

3 comments

3 Comments

murray.drew1mo ago

You ever had one of those jobs where you just knew your backup plan wasn't gonna cut it? I switched to a completely redundant drysuit system after a buddy got flooded on a deep dive and spent the whole trip shivering. That 2019 swell sounds brutal though, did you swap out your bailout bottle setup too?

wendyprice1mo ago

But see, I actually think there's something to be said for keeping things simple and not loading yourself down with a bunch of extra gear. The more complex your setup gets, the more points of failure you introduce. I've been diving for over 20 years and I still use a basic single tank and a simple wetsuit for most of my dives. If you're keeping up with your pre-dive checks and your basic maintenance, a single failure is pretty rare. And honestly, if the conditions are so bad that you're worried about your primary system flooding, maybe that's a sign you shouldn't be in the water anyway. Sometimes the best backup plan is just knowing when to call a dive.

michael_coleman101mo ago

Look, I respect your experience Wendy, and I'm not trying to tell anyone how to dive. But I've seen too many things go sideways on what looked like easy dives to buy into the "keep it simple" argument all the way. Back in 2018 off the coast of Monterey, I had a buddy whose drysuit zipper blew out at 60 feet in 49 degree water, and his single tank setup meant that was pretty much the end of his dive right there. In my opinion, basic pre-dive checks help but they don't cover stuff like a sudden hose rupture or a spg that decides to fail mid-dive. I guess I just think there's a middle ground between loading up like you're going to the moon and leaving yourself with zero backup for the stuff that actually does happen sometimes.