The dive team got to put its training to use this week end.
Training is always good but putting it in use is the best way to see how it
works. We got requested to survey and remove debris from some boat slips and a
fuel dock. This fuel dock is used by the Coast Guard and many commercial
fishing boat in the area, so it needs to be clear.
We suited up and
hit the water at low tide and searched the dock and the slips, even for low
tide we had 5 feet of visibility and even the water temperature was up in the
low 50s. With five divers in the water the slips were searched and debris
removed and the divers checked out one of the fishing boats that were in the
slip.
The captain was
worry that he may have picked up some line in his propeller, so we checked it
out and found nothing for him to worry about. But did recovered a lot of old line
that was laying on the bottom and around the pilings.
After we finished
up it was a quick stop at 7-11 for coffee and off to a marina to search for
something that boat owners reported hitting. This was a small lagoon channel
off the Metedeconk River. We set up a straight search pattern with a line
running across the channel and sent a dive down and back along the line
searching for whatever the boat could have hit.
Using one diver at
a time and changing divers on every pass we got our newer guys a lot of search
time and we covered over an hundred feet of channel by moving the search line
with each pass. The search was stopped once we moved in to deeper water. We
didn’t find anything that the boaters could have hit.
We also got some
lift bag training raising a twenty foot piling from the bottom of the lagoon
and bring it around the channel and up on the beach. Where it was staked in
place to help stop the beach from washing away. After all the work was done the
divers were treated subs and sodas.
The new guys got a
good work out and were able to show off their search skill. It was a good
lesson for everyone with changing jobs and getting to do a little bit of everything,
shore support, diver, line tender or go for. Ever job is important and needs to
be done and these guys did a great job.
