Hot take: the worst week of my career taught me more than the good ones

Two winters back I was doing inspection work on a pipeline in the Gulf, about 60 miles off Galveston. First day back after a long break, my comms cut out at 90 feet and I had to do the whole emergency ascent with hand signals alone. Next day my umbilical snagged on some old rig debris and the tender up top panicked and cut the air early by mistake. By Thursday I was so rattled I blew a simple flange bolt torque and had to redo the whole joint, which put us 4 hours behind. My supervisor pulled me aside and said something plain: "you don't get good on the easy days." He was right. That weekend I sat down and went through every step of my pre-dive checks and found two habits I had gotten lazy about. What's the one bad day on the job that actually made you a better diver?

1 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

1 Comment

bethpalmer3d ago

Those close calls at 90 feet with no comms had to change how you dive forever, right? Betting you're way more vocal about backup signals now than any classroom ever made you.

1