Wednesday, November 21, 2012

It's all in the training!....



As you can tell by our previous posts...its all about Hurricane Sandy. Its hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t seen it first hand. Everyone is doing their best to get things back to normal. Yesterday we helped out a friend a bit by retrieving a lost piece of salvage equipment. It made for a great day.
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Today, it was back in the water for more search and retrieval. This time at a local marina. Some of the items that had been lost during Sandy had been recovered from this area, but there were still more to be found. Chet led a team of six divers consisting of Joe, Bob, Tom C., Gibby, Tom T. and Joe #2. Sammi helped Chet with shore support.
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The water the day before was just less than zero visibility. Today….it was even worse. If your hand was touching your mask, you knew it was there, otherwise you may as well have just closed your eyes the entire dive. For most divers this is a “No Go” situation. Not the type of diving that your typical sport diver should even consider trying. Add to that equation the cold water, strong currents and debris and you can see how easily a diver could get in trouble.



However, this is what we train for. This is why we train in all diving conditions. This is why we practice working, salvage techniques, navigation and team work in underwater conditions that most people would just laugh at. Because when its time to get the job done…we want to be as prepared as possible.



We setup an out and back search pattern with guide lines. This helped a great deal with navigating in the murky muddy darkness. Sweeping our arms out, we slowly crawled over the search area. Fishing Poles, Job Boxes, Tools, Signs, Boat Canvas, the list goes on and on. At the end of the day the dock was covered with items retrieved from the murky depths.



To some it may have looked like a bunch of crazy divers in cold murky muddy water. But to us...it was just another day doing what we love most.



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