solo diving advice?

[Sat Diver]

I also don't agree that recreational divers should be universally seen as inferior to sci and comm divers.

I fully agree with you. There is no question of superior or inferior. They are tremendously different on all fronts. The one area where I see a big difference is the training at the entry level for recreational divers and for commercial divers.

 

[Sat Diver]

So true. Divers having fun simply avoid unfavorable circumstances. Commercial divers are there to get a job done safely, efficiently, and on time for their client; or they will find someone who can. This results in conventions that are not applicable to recreational divers.

For commercial diving contractors, it is less about litigation liability and more about good business. Exaggerated payouts are limited by the Jones act in most cases and big insurance companies do the battling. Sure hurting employees may raise insurance costs, but it also stops the job and that costs contracts. That is what justifies the equipment and support investments to stockholders. This is not to imply there isn’t a driving human side. There is a near fox-hole sense of comradery that develops when lives are so interdependent.

It also doesn’t mean one discipline is superior to another. It is just different. Most commercial divers could care less about their SAC rate, the names of critters, or the ability to hover. A lot of them are useless in Scuba and would rather go through table 6 than use it… OK maybe that is a slight exaggeration. Table 4 maybe.

Happy you are on the board Akimbo.
There is no such thing as an instabuddy when you dive commercially. Most of the time you are diving in conditions you would never choose to be in if it was not for the crazy $$$ you are getting. And as Akimbo says, if cannot or will not do it, there are guys younger, fitter and hungrier than you waiting for the chance.
Elaborating on Akimbo's comment about foxhole sense of comradeship, every dive supervisor I ever had, would rather be dead than take a chance with the safety of the divers in his care. So it does not matter what the suits in the oil company think, you know you are safe with the guy who has your life in his hands. There is a reason the Supe is usually an ex-Sat diver himself.