Worst day of diving I ever had was a 4 hour job in 48 degree water near Port of Long Beach

My heater failed 20 minutes in. Spent the next 3 hours shivering through a pipeline inspection. Couldn't feel my fingers by the end. Had to have the tender help me get my gloves off topside. Anyone else had a heater die on them mid job?

3 comments

3 Comments

lily_cooper1d agoTop Commenter

Gotta love when your heater decides to take a vacation mid job, right? Nothing says 'fun' like three hours of pretending you're a human popsicle while trying to focus on a pipeline. Bet your fingers were doing that weird tingly numbness dance by the end. At least the tender had a good story to tell about wrestling those frozen gloves off you.

kai_burns731d ago

Oh man, @lily_cooper nailed it with the popsicle comparison because that's exactly what it feels like. Had a heater crap out on me up in Puget Sound a few years back, water was barely 44 degrees and I was doing hull cleaning on a barge. Third hour in and my hands were so stiff I couldn't even grip the brush right, had to signal the topside guy to haul me up early. Worst part was my teeth chattering so bad I almost bit my tongue off through the reg. What kind of work were you on when that happened?

colescott1d ago

Reminds me of an incident off Port Townsend, @kai_burns73, where I was doing valve inspections on a fish farm pen and the surface air temp dropped to 38 with wind. By hour two my regulator was freezing up on the exhale, literally hissing ice crystals with every breath. The real kicker was when I came up and my hood had frozen into a solid hockey mask shape, took two guys and a thermos of hot water to peel it off my face. Your teeth chattering story hits different when you realize you can't even grind them together because your jaw is shaking too hard to control.