I need advice on commercial diving training and down the road.......

[jkohlbecker11]

I currently work full time in the Tampa area and am considering changing my occupation to become a commercial diver. I know there is a certification/schooling process but with working and saving up for a wedding, I'm curious to the cheapest and best possible way to do this without having to give up everything and putting life on hold. Any suggestions would be wonderful as far as quick classes or flexible schedules. If this is unheard of or impossible, any other advice would be great.

Thanks....................................

 

[rmediver2002]

Give the Florida School of Commercial Diving a call, they run classes on weekends so their students can continue to work full time.

Florida School of Commercial Diving, St. Cloud, Florida

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Forget about the wedding. By the time you are done with the training and then have to put in 14-16 hour days perhaps 7 days a week for God knows how long, come home dirty and wet and stinking and possibly be gone for weeks at a time you'd be looking for a divorce lawyer anyway. Break it off now and save you both some grief. Now that the fun stuff is out of the way!

I once thought of this. But at 48 I'm too old. The training schools I looked at and considered to be worth an investment took anywhere from 2-4 months, going 5 days a week, cost in the neighborhood of 10-20k plus whatever equipment you'll need, and there was no guarantee of getting in the water once you finished. Usually work was as a hose tender, gopher, stepnfetchit, or something along those lines for a year or more then maybe you get in the water. Or better yet the muck. Hope you got a girl who's real understanding and has lots of money and no friends to tell her that she wasting time with you.

 

[muddiver]

The cheapest commercial diving school is Youngs Memorial Community College in Louisiana.
Louisiana Technical College, Young Memorial Campus - Commercial Dive School

The web page lists the course for certification cost around $3,379.00 and was the shortest in the nation, and still accredited by the ACDE.
ACDE Member Schools

There are two types of commercail diving (in a nut shell) inshore where you work 8 to 10 hours Mon thru Fri, and offshore where you work seven twelves for the duration of the project (could be months or short as weeks).

The Flordia School of Commercial Diving is not listed on the ACDE list of accredidated schools. Could rmediver2002 be confused with the Commercial Diving Academy in Jacksonville?
http://www.commercialdivingacademy.com

I just tend to trust the certification from an agency that has some sort of accredidation, but that's just me.

 

[DeepSeaDan]

...find out a little about "the life" you think you want to get into. I have answered queries like yours numerous times on this board, thus I recommend you do a search for commercial diving posts on this site, then sit down & read a while. In my posts I usually site two websites that are particularly useful in gaining some insight into the deepsea diving world - check them out.

..And yes, the job is VERY hard on relationships, especially if you get into offshore work.

I had a dizzying 10 years at it, loved every minute, and got out with my liver intact.

Good reading.

Best,
DSD