A little catch up

Day : June 19th, 2010

Weather : WAY BETTTER than Cincinnati!!

Town : Portsmouth, NH

So, this is what happened... I got entirely too busy with everything going on at school during the last month to be able to keep up with this thing. So here's the rundown : Salvage was a blast, Pipeline Project put a scare through all of us, Graduation, Valedictorian status, girls are dumb, had an interview with a Engineering firm, got entirely too wasted for a month, finally got a job!!!!!

WHEW! That was a lung full. So yeah, I finally got the phone call I desperately needed to start working which was killer. My first job with the company was a 17 hr drive to New Hampshire / Maine for an inspection gig. Basically it went like this : Seventeen hour drive up, work for 20 minutes, turn around and drive seventeen hours back. Its defintely been a fun filled little trip. Things are looking up for working for this company long term which I'm actually glad to say for a change :-)

Welp......on the road again.

Start of the Junior

Day Fifty Five and Fifty Six : 0900

Temperature : Chilly

Mood : The WEEKEND!!!

I must be sick or something because I didn't even go out and drink this weekend even though it was my birthday weekend. Now that I think about it, I didn't drink in February with the exception of 3 days. Spent it all relaxing and writing my NDT report.

Day Fifty Seven : 0645

Temperature : 45 and Rain

Mood : Nothing like a swim in the rain

It never fails. If its raining during PT, it will be done right as PT is over and it wont rain the rest of the day. Today we started our NCCER rigging class, which is pretty chill. We learned about all the parts of a crane, how to determine the total capacity of a load when you factor in sling stress and other factors. So the entire day was spent in the classroom going over our NCCER book.

Day Fifty Eight : 0800

Temperature : Chilly again

Mood : Its way too cold for Florida

Today, we set up our rigging stations outside to start learning crane operation and associated hand signals and we learned how to tie 20 different knots using wire rope and braided line. I was on the knot tying station for the morning, in the afternoon we started the crane station but due to running out of time, we only got through 2 people. So we have to finish tomorrow.

Day Fifty Nine : 0800

Temperature : 50 and Sunny

Mood : Time is flying by, its smiles all around

Today we started off using the crane and got through 1 person before we got pulled off that to do some real world rigging. We had finally got our new barge for 2 classrooms to sit on, so to make room for the classrooms to be lifted to a transfer barge we had to remove a 30 ton tugboat engine and lower it onto a semi trailer. So I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon rigging up and moving the engine and the associated transmission to the semi trailer. During the afternoon, we rigged up a 25 ton Link Belt crane to be moved onto the barge. By the time we got done doing that, we had to rush through everybody using the crane to finish up the station by the end of the day.

Day Sixty : 0900

Temperature : 50 and Sunny

Mood : Warmth would be nice

Today, everyone was called over to help with the moving of the classrooms from dockside to the barge. After moving some crane mats around on the barge to form cribbing for the classrooms to sit on, we were ready to rig up the classroom. The classroom is actually 4 semi truck trailers welded together to have a classroom on the bottom and a classroom on the top. So its a rather large structure. Nobody seemed too keen on climbing up to the top to rig up the shackles so with two quick steps and a hand hold later I'm posted up on top of the classroom waiting to rig it up. Since I was the one on top, I had to tell the crane operator what to do so I could hook everything up. So now that that was done, we were able to go ahead and lift it to the barge, everything went smoothly. Once we got it set down, the only way to get to the stairs was to jump to the barge from the dock. So Grant, my instructor, told me to jump over and climb up and unhook everything which was cool as can be, getting up and actually hooking up the rigging and everything. We tried moving the barge over to the other barge but due to all the weight of the loads and the fact we missed high tide by a half hour, we had to wait till Friday.

Day Sixty One : 0900

Temperature : 60 and Sunny

Mood : Stupid Sinuses

Today was a dive day, except for me. I had mentioned to Grant that I wanted to help him work on the helmets, taking them apart, replacing any parts and getting them back to usable condition. Somehow that turned into doing inventory of all the new dive gear we recently purchased off a company. So while everybody else was standing around and not doing a whole lot on dive station, I was unloading a 20 ft box trailer. Which I think was better because it's more along the lines of work I'll be doing as I start out at whatever job I get, unloading and loading stuff back and forth etc. Halfway through the day, we decided it was the right time to move the barge. So since I was working for Grant, he had me go help with the move. So after we got the barge ungrounded, I was helping hook up the throw lines from the tug and helping direct the tug on where to go to keep from running into things when he couldnt see where he was going. It was a neat experience for sure. That took up a couple hours, which left me with little time to finish unloading the trailer and doing inventory. Finished up at 1700 and took a nice nap to finish off the day.

Day Sixty-Two and Sixty-Three : 0800

Temperature : Warm

Mood : I hate being sick

I spent the entire weekend in the dorms from this stupid sinus infection. Which is really lame. I need to get out and do something. Maybe I'll swim to the zoo next weekend at some point. Oh wait, I'll be down in Ocala for our Junior Month Deep Dive. Yay me....not

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BUSY BUSY BUSY - The Rest of Sophomore Month

Day Thirty Six /through/ Fourty Two
Temperature : Averages of 30 in the A.M / 55 in the afternoons
Mood : Classroom...no dive all week....uh oh.



This week was Hyperbaric Chamber Operation and Orientation. Pretty nifty class as we learned how to properly operate a chamber with a person inside and how to diagnosis what injury the diver sustained during the dive and determine which treatment table to initiate to save his/her life. *On a side note I learned how to cure a hangover within 30 minutes. A copy of the method is available for sale for 5 dollars each* Monday and Tuesday was all classroom days and Wednesday and Thursday were chamber days where we actually ran the chamber with people inside. Friday was Neurological day and the practical test for giving a neurological. Now if you get hurt, I can make sure your not too messed up.



The highlight of my time here at CDA so far definitely occured on Wednesday when the new freshman had Team Building with Dusty. I was lucky enough to be a safety swimmer for this occasion and I enjoyed every second of it. The 10 of us in the water as safety swimmers are the ones who get to have the most fun because we try to screw up the freshman on how they're suppose to do their bridge jump. We had them jumping everywhich way but the correct way. The entire thing this month turned out to be the worst showing the school has ever seen, but it was by far the funniest. This weekend I stayed in, due to the fact the Freshman brought whatever devil plague they carry called sinus infection / colds has reach the rest of the classes and we're all sick as can be. LAME





Day Fourty Three / through / Fourty Nine
Temperature : Beginning of the week was about 45 / Friday was 65
Mood : YAYAYAYAY!!!! We get to dive this week!!!



This week was spent with Grant for Inland/Coastal and Ship Husbandry which is also pretty neat. We learned about different tools we'll get to use underwater, different types of water gate's and valves that are used, different structures to control water level among other things. We also learned about the different parts of a ship, different protection methods to prevent corrosion, and where everything is located. Monday and Tuesday was spent in the classroom and Wednesday through Friday was spent in the river doing a 2hr and 30 min dive. There, we got underneath a boat and found the various parts of the boat, we also got "hands on" with a Gate Valve by removing and re-installing the valve. Then we swam over to the piling's supporting the Main Street Bridge and inspected those.

The weekend consisted of another trip home for 36 short hours. It was nice seeing everybody again. Sucks I ran out of time and didn't get to see everybody I wanted but there's always next time. Which will probably be after I graduate. I'm cool with it though.


Day Fifty / through / Fifty Four
Temperature : 30-35 in the A.M / 45-55 all week in the P.M
Mood : It's way to cold for Florida

Monday was spent in Travis's classroom giving us the "quick and dirty" on NDT (Non-Destructive Testing), the various levels of inspection, the different method's of testing, and various piece of equipment we might use. Basically we learned how to take Ultrasonic thickness readings, find minute cracks using an Electromagnetic Yoke via the flux leakage field and search grid patterns to find items that are on the bottom of the seabed. Tuesday and Wednesday was spent in the river for another two and a half hour dive where we dive a Hull Inspection on a boat we have floating around and then we worked on line sweeps using line pulls then we swam over to the Piling Cluster to do our inspection for our report. Thursday was our NDT final which I got a 94% on, which was the highest in the class! It's a damn hard test by the way. We also did a 10 minute tank dive in the morning where we used the Electromagnetic Yoke and the Ultrasonic Transducer. Today, we studied during the morning. Brushing up on everything we've learned so far. Graduation started at 1200 and we sat through that, ate some decent food of ribs and fried chicken then took our Sophomore Midterm which I got a 97% on. Who knows what the weekend will bring.

I would mention that my birthday was on the 23rd but seeing as how it turned out to be a total bust and everybody bailed on going to the bar, this is the only mention it will get...maybe next year. haha

Sophmore Week 1 - Underwater Welding

Day Twenty Nine : 0800
Temperature : Not too bad
Mood : Monday again...&Fht@1s5^

Spaghetti Monday, lunch is about the only thing I'm looking forward to right now. Well it's the start of my Sophmore Month and to kick things off, it's starting off with 180 amps being run through the water. However, before we can get to that point...it's time for some classroom teaching. Nothing too special, basically just gave us a brief overview on how to set up the welder and check connectivity, check for bad spots in the cable, how to splice welding cable, etc.


Day Thirty : 0800
Temperature : Cooling down slightly
Mood : Inbetween Want to Kill somebody and I just won the lotto

Tuesday, is another tuesday, in another week. But this Tuesday, we're welding. Topside that is, which is interesting considering that I've never welded in my life. haha. My goal : Successfully tact weld 3 pieces of 2 inch by 8 inch mild steel together for tomorrow's actual welding. Good thing I don't mind getting hurt since this has "uh oh" written all over it.....The good news is, that after what most would consider a circus act, that the pieces got welded together. The bad news is I managed to catch the bench on fire and light the entire 7014 electrode completely on fire. Don't know how I did it, but I did. Since we didn't have anything else planned for the day, I figure I'd try to actually weld something. Definitely interesting, took me a few tries to get the hang of it, they don't look pretty at all, but they would work. I am pleased with my success.


Day Thirty One : 0800
Temperature : Cold...again
Mood : I just want to go back to bed

Wednesday, is a good day, because I know that today and tomorrow are going to be dive days. I get to dive first so after we get everything set up, I take my project to the deck and dress out. I climb down into the tanks and set up everything. Ground Clamp, Check. Four Electrodes, Check. Electrode, Check, Balls of steel, Double Check. Time to go to work, I set my angles and yell "make it hot" and let the bright white glow do all the work. 49 seconds later it was all over and that was it. I did that 3 more times, climb to the surface and walk straight into the second tank to run the chainsaw. I'm singing the song quote "anything you can do, I can do underwater" to myself at this point. It's official. I have lost my mind. After another minute, I was done and I climb up and out. I dry off, inspect my welds which turns out we're some of the best in the class, (everybody else couldn't keep it in the groove) and spend the rest of the day back in the Welding Shop. I'm determined to run at least 1 good bead by the end of this school.


Day Thirty Two : 0800
Temperature : Windy, 50, Sunny, Cloudy. MAKE UP YOUR MIND!
Mood : Headache

Today, I got the pleasure of being stand-by diver...except its just sit around all day diver since the tanks are partially covered by grating and if there is a problem somehow it's easier to just pull them up instead of splashing the diver. So today is full of antics, laughter, bullshitting and telling people they shouldn't put "underwater welder" on their resume. Superglue expert is a better title for most of them. haha


Day Thirty Three : 0800
Temperature : Rain
Mood : TGIF. I'm getting hammered.

Today we started off by reviewing any questions we had with Walt over the welding and went over the entire question bank for the test. Took the test at 1030 and reviewed it all before lunch. I got a 94%. I'm happy with that, puts my lowest grade on a test so far at 88% with Anatomy and Dive Medicine ( which was still the highest grade in the class, so take that for what it's worth). After lunch we started Walt's version of Dive Charts and Hyperbaric Chamber Operation and Orientation. So it was note taking for the rest of the day till 1530 when Friday Cleanup proceeded to take place. Muster at 1645 and at the bar by 1700. I've earned it this week

Day Thirty Four / Thirty Five : 1030-1200
Temperature : Defintely Chilly
Mood : UGH! what a good night but my head hurts

The weekend can be summed up into a short statement. "Sleep all day and Party all night. Enough said. ( School work comes first Sunday Night - Thursday Night )

End to the Freshman Month

Day Twenty Five : 0800
Mood : Relaxed
Temperature : Chilly

Thursday was our second dive day into the river. I spent the morning tending again as per the rotation. And got to dive in the afternoon, my first dive was to assemble the square project, then sweep right to the oil rig project and count the anodes on the tower segment. After the dive was done, it was some more hurry up and wait till the end of the day when I was able to get another 17 minutes. This dive was interesting. We decided to do more line sweeps since I had limited time before we had to shut down the dive station. So we sweep me back 50 feet to a buoy then sweep right where I run right into the side of a concrete block. I climb up the block and lower myself down the other side of the block, turns out I lowered myself right into a hole in the salvage project pipe. Took me about 5 seconds to realize this mistake, whatever, I climb a bit farther in the pipe and shoot my pneumo to find my depth. After we get that reading, I follow my umbilical back and out of the pipe where topside has me start sweeping left. Roger that Topside, step...step...step...no step........and I proceeded to fall roughly 15 feet with absolutely nothing to grab on to and total dis-orientation. Scared the hell out of me. Took a breathe, calmed myself and cautiously followed my umbilicial back to the surface since my bottom time was up. Damn scary.


Day Twenty Six : 0800
Mood : TGIF
Temperature : Cloudy with scattered rain

Today is an easy day. Practiced donning and doffing the hats till 1030 when we started setting up the Mess Hall and PT for the Senior's Graduation. Nice little ceremony which lasted about 45 minutes then a simple Bar-B-Que grillout for everybody for lunch. After we tore-down and put the chairs and tables back, we had our freshman assessment. (Scored a 96/100) Once that was done, we were done for the week. Time to spend the evening next door at Jackie's. The month has flown by, only 3 months left to go.

Day Twenty Seven / Eight : 1130
Mood : Lazy
Temperature : Chilly

I haven't done much this weekend, just relaxed around the dorms. Periodic rain cancelled our plans to go to the beach so we're all just lounging around this weekend.

Two Eyes? No I have Ten Eyes

Day Twenty Three : 0800
Mood : I have no mood
Temperature : Chilling down

Tuesday was a day of more dive charts and a little quiz. Nothing too thrilling there. I've got a complete grasp on charting so I just sat back and watched some of the other guys get frustrated doing them till somebody would ask for help. Once we finished up the charting, Mick had us watch several DAN (Diver Alert Network) videos on AED's, First Aid/CPR, and signs and symptoms of marine wildlife injuries and the treatments for them. That rounded out the day.

Day Twenty Four : 0800
Mood : River Dive like whaaaat?!?!
Temperature : COLD like 36 degrees COLD

Today started off with a briefing on what we were going to be doing on our River Orientation Dive since this would be the first time diving the river. After the briefing was over, we took our Dive Chart test which I aced. (Seriously, what happened to me since I graduated. Im getting smarter....it feels weird) Once that was done, it was off to the dive station! I spent the morning tending once again, and finally dove at 1409 this afternoon. The instructors had me doing line sweeps which is how you tell the dive to move one direction or another. (ex. "Diver, face your umbilical and sweep to your right.") They sent me out to the Senior Oilfield Pipeline Project trying to get me tangled up in down lines, well instead of getting tangled in down lines...I found another diver. haha I had to of freaked him out since you literally can't see your hand in front of your face. I found it amusing. After that, Mick had me sweep left till they had me stop and told me to search the area. So I'm crawling over the bottom of the Trout river, running into various objects such as pipes, rocks, concrete blocks, etc. Right before I had to go topside, I found myself a lawn chair. I'm pumped just for the fact I found something...underwater...and couldn't even see it. I'm still smiling because of it. I'm going to bed.

oh yeah, rest of the day was spent tending....

Week 3 - What a Long Week

Day Fourteen : 1030
Mood : YAY! A day to sleep in!
Temperature : Sunny and 75

Sunday...finally a day to sleep in, and boy did it feel good! It was finally nice and all of us were tired of being couped up at school so what did we decide to do? Thats right, we went to the beach!! There is nothing better than spending Lazy Sunday on the beach. Threw a little football, swam in the cold Atlantic water, bake in the sun. All I can think of was "this is the life." :-) Once we started getting hungry we called it a day and headed back to school to catch chow and studied for the following day's Physiology test.

Day Fifteen : 0630
Mood : Monday again!? UGH!
Temperature : Sunny and great

Monday started out with PT as usual, I'm starting to really enjoy it. Get up, work out and feel good the rest of the day and whatnot. After the daily morning routine we had our Physiology test at 0800. I felt nervous going in but somewhat confident. When we found out the test results which wasn't till Thursday, turns out I got the highest score with a 97 which made me feel estatic! Anyways back to Monday's activities. Once we finished our test, we had our dive briefing with Red for the next to dive days. Disassemble a flange project, show topside the removed spool, reassemble the flange, assemble a square piping project, airlift the flange project to reach neutral buoyancy, then go topside to get blacked out to do the flange project all over again. I spent the day Tending (should of moved to Comms or Data Recording at somepoint but "asked nicely" to stay tending to get more practice at it. I'm starting to get quick at getting the divers dressed and more importantly, dressed correctly. Day ends and spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

Day Sixteen : 0800
Mood : Saddened
Temperature : Decent

Today wasn't a good day, I woke up to a text from my friend Nick saying I shouldn't come up to Richmond this upcoming weekend like I had planned due to *name removed for privacy* (the girl I liked) getting a boyfriend. Luckily though I was told I would be diving first in the rotations so that quickly grabbed my full attention. While everybody else was only partially dressed by the time Red (our instructor) gave the on-dive-station briefing I was fully dressed ready to don the hat. Since I was going to be the first dive to splash, Red had me set up the flange projects on the bottom of the tank which had to be lowered down to me. So my 60 minutes of bottom time to work on the project was actually more like 30 cause I spent the first 30 standing around waiting. haha. Soon as I had the go ahead to start working on the projects I wasted no time. I disassembled, and reassembled in 9 minutes. (most of the class was taking around 15 minutes when they could actually see it!) The square project took 4 minutes and the liftbag project took probably about the same. Then it was time for the blackout so off to topside I went, got duct tape across the face and went back down. I realized all of my tower climbing experience paid off for this because there's been times where I couldnt get a look at the bolt alignment due to its position being blocked by the actual radio. So breaking down the flange project went smoothly and only took 12 minutes to breakdown and reassemble. So while everybody else is struggling to finish everything with a full 60 minutes at bottom, I got everything done with a minute to spare! I got dried off and went back up to tending which I was glad to do due since by this time the sun was out and it was pretty warm. Stayed up there till lunch and after lunch the Junior class was short 2 people for their projects in the river so I got sent to help them for the rest of the day till the air-off drills. This was just dumb, why they couldn't just incorporate it into the earlier dive is beyond me. We had to get fully dressed once again just for a 5 minute dive for practicing going on bailout. Once the day was done, spent some time in the computer lab chatting with Kirsti from Richmond about what the deal was with *name removed for privacy*. I won't go into detail about it since it wouldn't be fair towards her. (if you read this, I wish you the best)

Day Seventeen : 0800
Mood : Death by Powerpoint
Temperature : 70 and Sunny again

Death by Powerpoint...and by that I mean learning Dive Medicine. Today we covered the simple / common injuries occured by divers. Various squeezes and barotraumas, etc. All the signs and symptoms are basically the same and the treatments are the same, deliver O2, perform First Aid / Rescue Breathing, and seek medical attention. Thrilling stuff let me tell you....NOT. This was a boring day since we didn't do anything but sit in class and take notes. Lots and lots of notes.

Day Eighteen : 0800
Mood : Blah
Temperature : Thunderous Downpour

Today, they gave us a break and taught us how to perform basic maintance on the hats we have here at school. First half of the day we had Red who taught us how to assemble a JIC fitting to a 3/8's Gate hose and what the industry standard was for proper assembly, then we learned how to splice speaker wire to the WWII telephone cable used in the field and make it watertight. We also learned how to disassemble various parts of the hat. Turns out Red jumped the gun kind of and that Dick was going to show us that in the afternoon, so the afternoon session turned into "Stories told by Dick" haha. Did I mention it was downpouring outside?! Well it was.

Day Nineteen : 0800
Mood : Death by Powerpoint...again
Temperature : Humid but Sunny

Friday was back in the classroom for more Dive Medicine. Today's stuff covered all the POIS (Pulmonary Over Inflation Syndrome) injuries and DCS (Decompression Sickness) injuries such as AGE's (arterial gas embolism), Dysbaric Osteonecrosis (death of the bone due to an air pocket in the bone) and DCS Type I and DCS Type II and several others. Basically in this first month, they've told us all the various ways we can die. *Did you know Commercial Diving is the 5th deadliest job in the world!?! Know you know! * That took up the entire day till 1530 when we got dismissed to clean the campus. Soon as we got dismissed it was off to the airport for a surprise trip home!! I missed my 1800 flight by 5 mins due to car trouble so I had to pay 50 bucks to catch the 1930 flight to ATL then the 2200 flight to CVG (that was still the original flight) soon as I landed I called my best friend Doug and met up with him to hang out for the evening. Within a half hour of landing, he took me to Pirates Den for some drinks to see more people, after spending some time there and not spending a dime, it was back to Greendale to visit even more people which I enjoyed so much. Finally got back to my house at 0430 in the morning haha.

Day Twenty : 1000
Mood : This is prison
Temperature : 45/50ish

Woke up Saturday wanting to go to the bank only to find out my parents said I couldn't take the truck due to the fact they had cancelled my auto insurance >:( GRRRRRR! So basically I go from one "prison" here in FL to another "prison" back in Indiana. Finally shaved my 3 week beard growth and back to the "clean baby face look". Kelly brought over little Camryn which I enjoyed getting to hang out with him for the evening even though he doesn't really know me. I still enjoyed it. Once she left, I got a ride to Perfect's to procur transportation for the evening. (I'm resourceful) I left Perfects and headed down to one Jon Davis's house and spent a couple hours chatting with him and playing Halo. Headed back to Perfects at 0100 to pick up Doug and it was back to Pirates Den to relax some more. Arrival back to the house at 0400.

Day Twenty One : 0730
Mood : Tired
Temperature : Chilly

Woke up and Kelly drove me to the airport to catch my 0910 flight back to Jacksonville. Glad to get back to Florida but I'll miss my friends that I had seen over the weekend. Chilled most of the day till 1800 when I headed next door to Jackies Bar to play some free Texas Hold'em Poker and watch the Championship games (Sucks the Jets lost, Glad the Saints won!!)

Day Twenty Two : 0800
Mood : Yay for PT
Temperature : Amazing

Today, we took our Dive Medicine test and me and a couple others got the highest score with a 88. Mick wasn't lying when he said it would be a hard test. After that, it was the start of charting dives and figuring out Residual Nitrogen. Easy stuff. Once we started getting into charting decompression stops on air it started getting complicated. Straight air dives were cake to figure out, when we got to Air/O2 stops I got entirely confused and fried my brain, then finished off the day charting SurDO2 (Surface Decompression Oxygen) I understood fairly well. Now its time to do the homework and try to understand the Air/O2 charting.

Week 2 - Mentally Taxed Minds

Day Eight / Nine : 0630
Temperature : Cold still
Mood : Tired



This week kicked off with "Dusty's PT" which is how Dusty the instructor gets his laugh by absolutely destroying us with morning PT. Dusty's week is regularly known as "PT Hell" Once that was over and we ate breakfast it was off to the classroom to take Physics...Now we all know I struggled with mathematics in high school so I had very limited hope in understanding physics. Monday we covered how to find the volume of a cylinder, how to find out the absolute lifting capacity of a object and we covered Boyle's Law which states that if the pressure goes up the volume goes down if the temperature is a constant. Tuesday was more phyics with us covering Charles's law ( at a constant pressure, as the temperature increases, the volume increases. The opposite is also true.), Gay Lussac's Law (at a constant volume, as the temperature increases the pressure increases and visa versa.), General Gas Law ( GGL which accounts for variables across the board), and Dalton's Law ( the pressure of gas is the sum of the partial pressures of the gases). Pretty interesting stuff actually.



Day Ten / Eleven : 0630
Temperature : Warming up!
Mood : Still tired



After more of "Dusty's PT" it was off to take the Physics test. I actually felt pretty confident about the test for some reason. I seemed to grasp the concepts fairly easy. Turns out I grasped them very well because when we got our tests back at the end of the day, I was the only one who scored a 100%.... :-) ! Physiology on the other hand is not going to be as good. I can see that already. Human anatomy, cell structures and etc were always too difficult to remember for me. After Wednesday's physiology class, it was time for "Team Building" which is just another way for Dusty to scream like he did in the military and get his laughs and somehow make us work as a group. It basically comes down to another PT session combined with bridge jumps. A right of passage here at C.D.A. Luckily it only took us two tries to get it right but it wore all of us out. I made it through two very long days in class, thinking we were going to have a test on Friday morning, but they ended up pushing it back till Monday. This week has been nothing but sitting in the classroom and I need to do something, thank god tomorrow is Friday.


Day Twelve : 0800
Temperature : Warm finally
Mood : Glad to be diving

Today is dive day, and our entire class is excited to finally be out of the classroom. Today's dive was a flange project in the 20 foot training tanks, getting use to taking it apart and using the correct terminology over the radio. Dive time was going to be a minimum of 20 minutes and a maximum of 30. Everything went alot smoother in terms of rotation of jobs and getting dressed and back to the dive site in a timely fashion which the instructors were happy with. I was in the 3rd rotation of divers so I spent the first part of the morning Tending to the diver that was in the water (keeping the hose from having too much slack and dressing and un-dressing the diver, which is just making sure the hose is secure to him and getting him into the hat properly). "Red" our instructor who was managing topside gave me high marks for tending because he saw that I wanted to do the best job possible, getting the diver dressed properly in a very short time (less than a minute) which I was pretty happy with. I'm going to make sure I keep up the good job. My dive went pretty good, time flew by and definitely didn't feel like 30 minutes of bottom time. Before we knew it, class was over and I wound down the week by hitting the bar....enough said.

Day Thirteen : 0700
Temperature : Nice
Mood : Hungover

Today was our final checkout dives for our Open Water scuba license, so the bus left school at 0700 and I slept the entire way down to Ocala. Our first dive was down to 30 feet and we practiced taking off and putting back on our BC's underwater and buoyancy control. We stayed down for about 30 minutes then headed to the surface to let the other group get their dive in. After playing the fun little game called "hurry up and wait" we had another dive at 1430 where we went to 40 feet ( I dropped down to 60 to keep from getting kicked by everybody ) and made a lap around the grotto, we only ended up making it about half way due to the fact two people ran out of air since they weren't checking their pressure gauges. Once we all got to the surface and got out, we finished up our log books and are now officially Open Water certified (I'm going to take full advantage of this between now and the end of school). After playing another round of "hurry up and wait" we were told school would be leaving food out for us when we got back to Jacksonville, then they told us to eat at Ocala, then right after we got our food, they told us the bus is leaving so we barely had time to eat half a plate. They're extremely dis-organized as a whole for the SCUBA program and I'm really glad that I had already taken the class back home even though I didnt get to finish it out up there. The two hour bus ride back went quick because as is tradition, I passed the hell out. Tomorrow is going to be another lazy day where I can finally sleep past 0630 and I have to do laundry. Oh the joy's of doing laundry...

I'm looking forward to this upcoming week, 2 dive days (class is split half and half on who dives which day) in the "demand" hats and finish out the week with dive medicine and finally a full weekend off. What to do, oh what to do?? Hmmm

"love is just a word, until someone comes along and gives it meaning"

The First Weekend - Friday Included

Day Five : 0645
Temperature : Warmer / 50
Mood : Excited!

Friday was a really fun day to say the least!! Started out with the normal PT and breakfast chow. After that it was off to the classroom very briefly to review the Diving Equipment test, ( I aced it!) once that was done it was off to set up the dive station. **I'll do my best to explain the positions of the dive station I encountered** First position I "manned" was the pneumofathometer ("nu*mo*fa*th*om*e*ter") which is what we use to find out the depth of the diver, also at my station is the opening and securing of the main air lines to the divers. The second position is Data Recorder, whose job it is to keep track of the time the diver "leaves surface, reaches bottom, leaves bottom, reaches surface" also figuring out the Total Time Under Pressure and keeping track of the "bottom time" or the amount of time the diver is allowed to stay at that depth. After that is Communications, which is relatively simple, which is just telling the diver what to do and keeping track of him in the water and relaying information to the Data Recorder. Last but certainly important is the "Tender". The Tender is the guy who suits up the diver, attaches the "umbilical" or hose(s) to diver and then mans the "hose" while the diver is in the water. He also is responsible for keeping the umbilical from having too much slack in the water to wear the diver could possibly get entangled.
It wasn't till after lunch that I finally got to get in the water with the full gear, but let me tell you...it was well worth the wait. Any doubt I had in whether or not this was the right career for me went right out the window as soon as I hit the bottom. It was the coolest feeling in the world being in that hat knowing that I could stay at the bottom forever theoretically. The feeling of weightlessness was incredible! :-) Wearing that 70 lbs of gear though does wear you out but that will go away shortly. Once it was time to shut down the dive site and clean up, it was over to the dive locker to get our gear together for the following morning's trip to Ocala. Once we were released for the day, it was chow time. Once that was done, me and the boys walked next door to Jackie's to celebrate making it through the first week with some drinks and darts. Ended up being a damn good day!!


Day Six : 0700
Temperature : Decent (JAX) / 35 Snow (Ocala)
Mood : Ready to Go!!

Saturdays we usually have off but today it was off to Ocala, Fl to the 40 Fathoms Grotto (Also owned by the Commercial Diving Academy) for our Open Water scuba license training. Definitely slept the whole way there haha. You would think that driving 2 hours south the weather would be slightly warmer but no, we get there and there is snow on the ground....there is snow on the ground. I chose Florida to get away from the stuff but it seems to follow me across the country. So it's about 35 out and we're dressed in soaked wet suits from diving yesterday...needless to say, it was a bit chilly. Anyways, the water was actually really warm considering, probably about 65-70. We went through the standard snorkel drills ( water displacement, mask clearing, regulator retrieval, etc ) then grabbed our scuba gear and did it all again.
Time came for lunch and since they are limited on indoor seating currently due to renovations, we were forced to sit outside on the lunch tables with snow on them. Definitely not ideal but a mans got to eat ya know. We ran back down to the docks and jumped right back in the water to warm back up haha. After lunch was over, we donned our scuba gear and and practiced the same drills except this time at depths of 10 and 20 feet. We finish up at 1400 and head back to Jacksonville. We were sad to leave because all of us enjoyed it so much we wanted to stay for longer, but not on a Saturday. Once we got back, I was physically exhausted I took a nice little nap in the TV room and woke up just in time for evening chow. Afterwards I made a few phone calls, talked to a certain somebody :-) and hung out for a while just being lazy. 2000 hrs rolls around and Neil, Jordan, Guido and myself head back over to Jackie's for a few drinks and couple rounds of pool and darts, nothing too special this night, just something to do. 0130 rolls around and we head back to the dorms. I got another phone call which I was glad to take and stayed up till 0300 when I passed out from exhaustion from the previous two days of diving.

Day Seven : 1000
Temperature : Moderate / Sunny
Mood : EXHAUSTED!

Today was a lazy day, woke up to a disturbing text message which put me in a "angered" mood to put it lightly. The person responsible will get what they deserve, that is a guarantee... Anyways I woke up and busted out the 16 chapter tests needed to finish up the Open Water scuba license book work. Lunch came and went but boy was it good. Chicken Noodle soup/Rolls/Salad/Chicken Sandwich. After lunch I took another nice nap since there isnt a whole lot to do around here on the weekends if you don't have a vehicle. Evening chow came and after that I spent a little time studying for the Construction Math quiz I have at 0645 tomorrow morning, which I'm feeling pretty confident about. Spent some time watching the Packers game (they came so close!!!!) and now I'm getting ready to hit the rack for some sleep so I can get up in the morning.

END OF WEEK 1 - 15 more to go...

"Dum Spiro Spero" - latin for "while I breathe, I hope"

Day Three and Four - Busy Busy Busy

Day Three : 0630
Mood : Anticipating
Temperature : Cold

Another morning of 0630 PT and cold temperatures...PT is going to kick my ass and by the end I'm going to be chiseled and huge. The day started out with Construction Math again at 0800. More of a review and a exam to see what we know. Everything seems to be coming back to me pretty well which is comforting to know seeing as how I struggled with math in school. That took up the morning. After lunch it was back to Con Math and spent next couple hours covering volumes and square footage of rectangles and cylinders. Kind of confusing at first but I picked it up fairly quickly. Once that was done, the Administration faculty came in and talked about electives till afternoon muster at 1645. Once muster and chow was done, it was back to class at 1830 for Open Water Scuba class. (I'm stuck taking it again since I never got to complete my open water dives and they won't sign off on letting me take the dives without taking their class) That lasted till 2100, which sucked because we were all mentally done after being in class all day. Needless to say I didn't stay up too much longer yesterday. They weren't lying when they said the first month was going to be academic intensive...

Day Four : 0630
Mood : Exhausted
Temperature : Cold / Warm and Sunny (afternoon)

Today started off with us finding out we were "graduating" to join the upperclass men's PT routine since we were doing "extraordinarily well"... Senior PT is 10x harder than freshman PT because the repetitions are twice what we're use to and the exercises have various ways to accomplish them. Once that was over, at 0800 we went to Diving History and Diving Equipment which was a really interesting class. A lot of lingo to be learned her for "proper" talk over the communication boxes by both the Tenders (guys who look after the diver) and the Diver.
After lunch, it was back to class to go over more diving equipment and more dive lingo. Surprising myself again, I managed to soak up everything like a sponge. When it came time for review while couple kids were taking care of account updates, I was acing all the questions! The best part of the day though was setting up the dive station, preparing for a mock dive also for the fact we get our first dive TOMORROW!!!!!!! So excited for that! Other than that is was a relatively uneventful day. My mind is definitely shot from this sudden burst of learning. Going to call it an early evening so I'm fully rested for the first dive tomorrow.


Homesickness kicked in pretty good for a good half of the day. Just have to keep looking towards the end goal and what I will have accomplished...

"truth and happiness live inside forever"

Day One and Two

Instead of texting everybody all the time, ( I only get to use my cell after class lets out at 5pm till I go to bed at roughly 11:30) I decided just to create this little blog to keep everything nice and simple for everybody including myself.

Day One : 0730
Mood: Excited
Temperature: 45 / Sunny

Woke up from the Red Roof Inn and drove to school for the start of my Commercial Diver schooling(Class of 0110). Weather wasn't too bad, definitely better than what it was back home. We end up waiting around till 0845 to start orientation which took probably a solid 3 1/2 hours till lunch was served. The food down here is down right delicious and I'm definitely going to get spoiled on it!! :-) After lunch, most of the class got their physicals done while we got our bunk assignments. Nothing like sleeping on a single sized bed thats hard as a rock. Today was laid back, mainly just getting a tour of the place, meeting the Instructors and Administration faculty and setting up the bunks, and picking up all of our equipment.

Once class was out at 1700, most of us ran to Walmart to pick up any last minute items we needed. Once we got back and relaxed for a while, couple of us walked next door to Jackie's ( Yes, there is a bar about 500 feet away next door. I have a feeling I'll be spending plenty of time over the with the guys. haha) and had a couple beers, couple shots and played couple games of darts. Next thing you know, it's time for "freshman orientation" which basically meant we jump off the bridge into 40 degree water. IM GAME! It's wasn't so much of a "hazing" as it just earned the respect of the Seniors. Turns out this is more of a brotherhood than anything because we're all each other has got for the 4 months we're here. Ended up being a good night, cold and windy but good night.


Day Two : 0630
Mood : Tired / Mentally taxed by 1700
Temperature : COLD!

After a good night sleep surprisingly, (I do attribute that to the alcohol factor) We woke up between 0530 and 0615 and headed to the dive locker to dress out in "soft gear" for morning PT. That was a bitch, but it will definitely get me back into shape like I've been wanting! After morning pt, we headed to the chow hall for breakfast. I'm gonna look forward to meals because for the most part, they are just amazing. Gotta love "southern cooking". Anyways, once chow was over, we headed to the main classroom building for "muster" where we find out what we'll be going over during the day. We were scheduled for a 60' foot pressure tolerence test to make sure we can freely equalize the pressure that builds as you dive deeper. Before I had my test however, I had to go get my physical since we ran out of time yesterday. This proved to be interesting. I passed all my tests with pretty good results, but when it came time to draw blood for a couple tests the lady taking the blood missed my vien 3 times before she called over another girl to do it. She hit it on the first try so I ended up getting stuck 4 times. GRRRR is all I have to say. Once we got back, it was lunch chow and after that it was over to take the Pressure Tolerence test and get our dive logs filled out with the standard personal information. After that was over, the 8 of us that had to get physicals got sent to First Aid / CPR class where we missed the first hour or so (it'll be interesting come test time to see what we missed). Once class was done, it was off to Afternoon Muster for debriefs and then dinner. Once dinner was over, we had study group for our Construction Mathematics class test thats tomorrow morning. Just thrown a packet consisting of basic 8th grade math and told to turn it in, in the morning. Did I mention I'm ri-dic-o tired at this point?!?

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, not sure what's in store but I know I have a 1830 class for my Open Water cert along with pool training Saturday and next weekend it's off to Ocala, FL to 40 Fathoms Grotto to do my checkout dives. This first month is going to be study, study, study and more studying!! It's going to be one hell of a ride.


I miss alot of people from back home(one in particular, if you read this, I hope you don't forget about me!) and I'll be back at the end of my 4 month stay here at the Commercial Diving Academy in Jacksonville, FL.