It's been a long time ago now, but I worked with a diving company for about 6 years. I was what we called a Welder/Diver, meaning I welded underwater. When I tell people this they usually have two thoughts that immediately enter their minds 1) a Jacque Cousteau film, clear blue water on a coral reef, but it usually wasn't like that at all, and 2) money, lots of money

There were a few times when we were in very nice places, beautiful coral, colorful fish, clear water, with good pay. But most of the time we were in dirty water, low visibility to NO visibility with average pay.

There was a time when divers made really good incomes. But by the time I got into it the pay had plummeted. This was back in the 1980's. Dive companies live and die by what oil companies spend, and they weren't spending much during my diving career.

As far as the conditions, whether we were working off of an oil rig, Jack-Up Barge or other type boat, or on the bank of a river, it was more like a construction site and not like a Jacque Cousteau movie. Diesel fumes filled the air, river banks were muddy and dirty, and it was just plain old hard sweaty work.

What we basically did was underwater construction. Some examples of the work we did was replace boat landings on oil rigs, underwater hot taps (tie a new pipeline into an existing one), replace damaged structure of an oil rig, removed rope from the propellers of boats and ships, and other miscellaneous tasks.

Overall I have fond memories of those days. But there were enough minuses that over time drove me into another career choice. Not the least of which was the traveling. We traveled a good bit, which wasn't too bad until I got married and we began to have kids.

So with all that said, here are some of the stories...