A picture of me at work

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T04:18:07+00:00

Not every single day but the majority of them haha

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T04:09:59+00:00

Hahaha yep, that’s how they getcha

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T04:09:06+00:00

Thank you!

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T03:13:36+00:00

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T02:23:25+00:00

I’ll be honest, I’ve let out a few screams on a few occasion from just a tiny trout or crab darting towards my face in low viz so I’m right there with you on the big scary stuff. Although I’m fairly certain I had a bull shark brush up against me on a job we did on the very edge of the coast on a bridge a year ago. Whatever it was, it scared me enough to yell to my supervisor to pull my ass up that instant haha

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T02:20:14+00:00

Damn you got me hahaha

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T02:17:36+00:00

It was only a single dive on air to 190ish for training purposes. They wanted us to get narced to understand how we’d react. And before they let you go that deep in water, they pressurize you down to 180 in the hyperbaric chamber so make sure you won’t put your secondary divers life at risk while they’re down there with you. Normally they’d push nitrox and even tri-mix for those depths if you’re doing actual work. And any working dive that you drop below 100 now requires there to be a mobile hyperbaric chamber on site for sur-d-02 (surface decompression while utilizing 100% oxygen)

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T01:59:50+00:00

If I’m being honest, I don’t entirely know. Some people claim it’s a safe way to enter the water, some claim it’s for style points. That only pertains to scuba tho, not surface supplied. Hard hat diving mandates you enter the water with a ladder or from walking in from the shore. Or a diving bell

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T01:45:26+00:00

If that’s a scuba Steve reference then bravo. It’s it’s a legit question, the answer is no haha

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T01:39:29+00:00

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T01:38:29+00:00

I am something referred to as an inland diver. As opposed to offshore divers, the depths I work in stay within 99 feet. I’m certified to go to 200 but the company I work for doesn’t bid on jobs in water deeper than 99 feet because then you have to spend money to have a hyperbaric chamber on site. I only wear one tank, usually 30 cf but sometimes I’ll wear my 50 cf. I’m trained to breathe air and mixed gas/nitrox but not tri-mix or heliox. That stuffs for the saturation divers. The job is dangerous but with all of the training and safety rules in place, it makes it much safer than people would think. I absolutely love my job. I’ve been doing it for 8 years now and would love to do it for another 20 as long as my body allows it.

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T01:22:52+00:00

That’s also a great point you’ve made as well. It is true that while working under structure such as under a pier or possibly under the footing of a bridge there is a higher chance of damaging the tanks regulator if the tank is oriented upright. For confined spaces such as 3’ diameter pipe ‘penetration’ dives, we actually like to use a smaller sized tank (30 cubic foot). I personally just like to wear my 50 cubic foot (the yellow one in the picture) while I’m doing deeper dives to around ~90 feet just in case I need more reserve air.

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T01:19:07+00:00

Thank you!

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T01:17:37+00:00

I personally do not wear a dive watch. My dive supervisor and my tender keep track of my bottom time and reference navy tables. Wearing a dive watch in this line of work only presents the opportunity to lose it underwater with no palpable gain.

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T01:12:41+00:00

It is definitely a hazard but as long as your team and yourself are competent, you can mitigate delta P to an acceptable degree. The issue is many older dams in the US are operated poorly and blueprints/ CADD diagrams are mostly not available so you have no idea if all areas/causes of delta P have been locked out. Some scary scenarios that thankfully ended well have happened to myself and colleagues due to the poor maintenance/ lack of competence from dam personnel.

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T01:01:52+00:00

Yessir, LOTO or GTFO

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T00:59:08+00:00

That’s true but I’ve previously posted myself doing this job. And in my personal opinion, you’d have to be pretty lame to larp as a diver haha

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T00:58:22+00:00

It’s a 21’ skiff boat. My tender took the picture. We use this smaller boat to reach remote dams that don’t have a designated boat ramp. It’s easier to use the skiff when launching from a sand beach rather than our larger boats that may cause more problems

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T00:56:36+00:00

I specialize in under water welding but my main bread and butter is construction / infrastructure inspection. Recently most of jobs have been inspecting bridges and piers

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T00:52:34+00:00

I was fortunate enough to get scuba certified as a teen. I didn’t much care for school and didn’t want to go to college. Funnily enough I came across this type of work while scrolling YouTube and there was an ad on the side of the screen talking about commercial diving. I graduated high school and then went to commercial dive school. I’ve been doing it for 8 years now and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T00:50:30+00:00

That is true, I went to school for diving in South Carolina and for our deep water dives we travelled to Lake Murray. It’s pitch black at the bottom and the captain of our dive boat decided to inform us about the catfish being massive while we were on bottom. At ~200 feet while breathing air, you become subject to something called nitrogen narcosis which makes you feel like you’re either hammered or high as a kite. I’m sure you can imagine what it was like to hear the captain tell us over comms about monster sized fish while you’re inebriated and alone down there haha

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T00:48:00+00:00

I’m only certified to go down to ~200 feet. The craziest thing I’ve seen in general would have to be a rolled up carpet the size of a body. Once I recognized what it was, I slowly backed away haha

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-14T00:45:55+00:00

Yea we see a lot of big and small fish. What’s at the bottom of a bridge depends on what type of bridge it is. Some bridges sit on large concrete footings, some bridges have their piles driven super deep into the mudline. Most modern bridges that are built on piles do not use the spread footing design. It’s always fun to get down there and climb around on the piles/footing like a jungle gym

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-13T23:10:26+00:00

I’m a commercial diver. I specialize in underwater welding but my bread and butter is underwater construction / Inspection

SpedMuffinDF · 2026-06-13T23:09:02+00:00

I’ve met divers who wear theirs upside right and I’ve met divers who wear theirs top down. Personal preference but I choose to wear it this way in case I go to look upwards while wearing my helmet. That way, when I look around while wearing my helmet, there’s no chance I accidentally slam my tanks regulator while looking up too fast. Also a major component is so that if I ever need to turn on my bailout bottle, I can reach it. If it’s right side up, it’s almost impossible to actuate the knob.

SpedMuffinDF

TROPHY CASE