I once posted a topic on this, and i was suggested everything from home based bussiness to my own lfs to becoming a nature photographer. my favorite was becoming a professional diver though. I love the idea. superb pay, along w/ being in the ocean. However i really can't find much on industrial diving on the internet. How much time do they spend in the wwater? Im guessing not much, because of the pay. What exactly do they do? Just underwater welding, or what? And and all info on this would be much appreciated. Also, what other kind of diving is there?
Thanks a lot guys..
Commie divers do anything engineering based, just underwater (assembly, inspection etc.). They also do dry hyperbaric welding.
Commercial diving is in a state of flux. There are a lot of people qualified for not an amazingly large amount of jobs. Look through any commy diving forum for more info, or just scout through diving forums, you will get the idea.
In the UK, getting your commie tickets are not cheap, expect to pay £10,000 or more all in for a career without guaranteed work and that is not a long term career (very few old divers as they are always fizzing and running a pretty high risk of getting bent).
However!
If you get on a decent rig and do Saturation diving, you will spend about 28 days at pressure (including the week it takes to get back to the surface pressure) and will be earning around £900 per day for that period. On those sort of trips you will be spending up to 8 hours at a time in the water, before resting in a pressurised dry vessel. Before you can do this you have to spend your time working as the life support techs for another diver or two.
Commie diving is pretty good, though it can be risky. While it is certainly safer now than 10 years ago, you will notice they tend not to publish any statistics on how many divers die or get badly injured.
Another option (if UK based) is always Royal Navy mine clearance.
