News
Careers as a Commercial Diver
Take your love of diving and make it your career and become a commercial diver. A commercial diver is effectively anyone who is paid to work underwater. This could include media, shellfish, archaeological, inshore or offshore divers.
The largest employer of commercial divers is the oil and gas industry, with developments in offshore renewables, such as offshore windfarms, coming a close second.
A career as a commercial diver could take you around the world and will provide you with good earning potential and great job satisfaction. When you start out in your career, you could command a day rate of around £150 a day, but this could go up to £1300 for saturation, or mixed gas divers.
Depending on the sort of career path you’d like to take as a commercial diver will depend on the training you undertake. In order to work offshore you will have to undertake all of the required Health & Safety Executive certificates – HSE SCUBA, HSE Surface Supplied and HSE Surface Supplied Top-up. If you’re interested in working inshore, you will only require the HSE SCUBA and HSE Surface Supplied certificates.
Having experience as a sports diver will certainly stand you in good stead in your training as a commercial diver. However, there are a number of differences between commercial and sports diving. You will have good experience of buoyancy, equalising your ears and some of the kit, however your sports diving experience does not transfer to commercial diving.
The HSE tickets you gain, which are required to be a commercial diver, are really just your way of getting to work, a bit like a taxi. Once you’re on the work site you need to know what you’re doing once you’re faced with the job at hand. Ensure that the training you undertake not only includes the required HSE tickets, but also additional skills and tools training required to actually get the job done – which is what you will be paid for. This may be incorporated throughout your HSE training, or it may be provided as additional training courses, once your HSE training has been completed, such as Underwater Inspection (almost a pre-requisite for working offshore now).
If the offshore industry is the area you’re interested in, once you’ve gained enough experience and working dives, you can then go on to train as a saturation diver and complete the HSE Closed Bell course. This advanced diving certificate allows you to work at various depths using oxygen and helium breathing mixtures (mixed gas) and saturation techniques. The HSE Closed Bell qualification allows you to work at various depths using oxygen and helium breathing mixtures (mixed gas) and saturation techniquesThe HSE Closed Bell qualification allows you to work at various depths using oxygen and helium breathing mixtures (mixed gas) and saturation techniquesThe HSE Closed Bell qualification allows you to work at various depths using oxygen and helium breathing mixtures (mixed gas) and saturation techniques This ticket is often the ultimate goal for commercial divers, thanks to the excellent pay rate of over £1300 a day in the North Sea.
News
Dive Worldwide Announces Bite-Back as its Charity of the Year
Over the next 12 months, specialist scuba holiday company Dive Worldwide will be supporting Bite-Back Shark & Marine Conservation with donations collected from client bookings to any one of its stunning dive destinations around the world. The independently-owned operator expects to raise £3000 for the UK charity.
Manager at Dive Worldwide, Phil North, said: “We’re especially excited to work with Bite-Back and support its intelligent, creative and results-driven campaigns to end the UK trade in shark products and prompt a change in attitudes to the ocean’s most maligned inhabitant.”
Bite-Back is running campaigns to hold the media to account on the way it reports shark news along with a brand new nationwide education programme. Last year the charity was credited for spearheading a UK ban on the import and export of shark fins.
Campaign director at Bite-Back, Graham Buckingham, said: “We’re enormously grateful to Dive Worldwide for choosing to support Bite-Back. The company’s commitment to conservation helps set it apart from other tour operators and we’re certain its clients admire and respect that policy. For us, the affiliation is huge and helps us look to the future with confidence we can deliver against key conservation programmes.”
To launch the fundraising initiative, Phil North presented Graham Buckingham with a cheque for £1,000.
Visit Dive Worldwide to discover its diverse range of international scuba adventures and visit Bite-Back to learn more about the charity’s campaigns.
MORE INFORMATION
Call Graham Buckingham on 07810 454 266 or email graham@bite-back.com
Gear News
Scubapro Free Octopus Promotion 2024
Free Octopus with every purchase of a SCUBAPRO regulator system
Just in time for the spring season, divers can save money with the FREE OCTOPUS SPRING PROMOTION! Until July 31st SCUBAPRO offers an Octopus for free
with every purchase of a regulator system!
Get a free S270 OCTOPUS with purchase of these combinations:
MK25 EVO or MK19 EVO with A700
MK25 EVO or MK19 EVO with S620Ti
MK25 EVO or MK19 EVO with D420
MK25 EVO Din mit S620Ti-X
Get a free R105 OCTOPUS with purchase of the following combinations:
MK25 EVO or MK19 EVO with G260
MK25 EVO or MK17 EVO with S600
SCUBAPRO offers a 30-year first owner warranty on all regulators, with a revision period of two years or 100 dives. All SCUBAPRO regulators are of course certified according to the new European test standard EN250-2014.
Available at participating SCUBAPRO dealers. Promotion may not be available in all regions. Find an authorized SCUBAPRO Dealer at scubapro.com.
More information available on www.scubapro.com.
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