3
A silt-out in the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge made me switch up my comms gear
We were doing a hull survey and the current kicked up a wall of silt so thick I couldn't see my own gauges. My old voice comms were useless with everyone talking over each other trying to figure out positions. The dive supervisor, Mike, had us switch to a numbered line-pull system he learned on a North Sea job. Now I always carry a small reel with pre-agreed signals, like three pulls for 'stop work'. Has anyone else had to change their main way of talking down there after a bad viz day?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
the_kevin1mo agoTop Commenter
Yeah, but nobody's mentioned how it messes with your head too. I mean @michaeljones, the slate thing works but when you can't even see the slate to read it, you're back to square one. We started using a simple clacker that makes a different sound per number of clicks. One click for pressure check, two clicks for ascend. It's loud enough to cut through the noise of your own breathing and doesn't need any light at all.
8
michaeljones3mo ago
Smart move going to line pulls. We had a similar mess in a murky harbor and ended up using a simple slate for numbers. Sometimes the low tech stuff is the only thing that cuts through.
7
Yeah, that's the real stuff right there. My team got stuck in zero viz inside a wreck once, and hand signals or voice just turn into noise. We drilled on touch signals after that, like a tap on the shoulder means follow me. You can't beat having a physical thing to feel when you can't see a damn thing.
6