Notice the Helium recovery...at 915 feet!!

My deepest saturation depth was around 700 feet. At that time we thought that was "bad ass". We were blowing helium, and it was expensive.

These guys have full gas recovery gear. (think...BIG money). They're saturated to 920 feet!!! Took us a week to surface! These guys would have needed almost two weeks to surface. These guys have balls of steel!

Watch this video carefully. These two guys (there are two) are more than two weeks away from home...no matter what happens. Their gear is some of the most premier and spectacular gear on Earth. They are 912' feet below the surface. They are 5x deeper than any SCUBA diver could go. They might as well be on the Moon...it would be a shorter ride home.

Just one of these Kirby Morgan helmets cost more than $20,000 US, and you have to buy them yourself. They only fit one person. You would never want to have it any different.

Imagine just one mistake! Just one. And, in this video you will see several.

Life is so fragile!



But, people really do this...it's real!

I know, I did it for a while...not this deep though. This is crazy deep!!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

They're saturated to 920 feet!!! Took us a week to surface! These guys would have needed almost two weeks to surface. These guys have balls of steel!

2 weeks? How does that work - is there a redoubt where you rest and eat before climbing slowly back to surface? Curious.

Notice him adjust his hot water after he asks the question about why his chain fall isn't working (even though he's rigged everything right). The water temp is about 37F...and probably 100F on the surface. He's freezing!

You're breathing nearly pure helium at that depth. Oxygen is pure poison. It's exhausting. It's unimaginable.

The difference between my greatest depth and what these guys are doing is simply orders of magnitude!! I can't even imagine going to this depth!! I mean, I know the physiology of it, but I don't even want to go there!! It's CRAZY!!

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Hold on a sec.
Trying to capture the screen.

Close Bell Diving

Oh good ops back.

Gotta be cold.

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

You're in a closed system, a closed circuit. A completely pressurized system. You go down for 8 hours with three divers in a bell, compressed to the depth you dive at. Two divers work and one stays behind as the rescue diver.

You are compressed to the depth you work at., and you stay at that depth, for 20-30 days. You come back up to a dive ship at the end of every shift, but you remain at the depth pressure...this is the most dangerous part. This is "saturation".

You are paid for 24 hours a day, but you can't leave. You can't go anywhere. You're in saturation. You live in a great big tube, where you sleep and eat (shower and crap). They give you the best food imaginable, but you can't taste anything. Order a Coke, and when it comes through the air-lock...it's flat. You're under more pressure than the carbonation inside a beverage can. It sucks kinda...but the money's GREAT!

The physiology of all that is mostly just unknown.

If you get sick, or injured. There are no drugs...because no one knows how those drugs will react in such a low oxygen environment. You're not at the surface, even though you might be on the surface...but you might as well be a million miles away. Just 4" of plexiglass between you and the real world, for a month!

Frankly, it's scarey. Long term. No one knows how breathing nearly pure helium for weeks at a time affects long term health. Oxygen is toxic at these depths...deadly. And, we all think oxygen is the thing which will make us live. In this world it will kill a person in less than 60 seconds.

What these guys are doing in the video I posted are on a different level of existence. Anything I may have ever done pales in comparison to what these guys are doing. Seriously.

Just to give an example; If you dive to the bottom of the deep end of a swimming pool, you might need to pop your ears, or at least feel the pressure. That's 10 feet. If you dive to 30' feet you will need to pop your ears or they will rupture.

If you SCUBA dive to 100' feet below the surface, regular "air" 70% nitrogen and 30% Oxygen will begin to become toxic, creating a symptom called Nitrogen Narcosis. At just 100'. Some can go deeper, but not much. I can go to 140'. Well used to.

At 150' feet you need to start thinking about mixed gas, just 150' feet. At 200' feet you need to be full mixed gas including helium. Below 200' everything changes, and now all of a sudden you start needing tons of helium.

500' feet...600' feet...now we're talking about tens of tons of helium. At 900' feet, where these guys are diving, they're going through probably 10 tons of helium an hour per diver. Costs $100,000 / hour to keep one of these divers down. That's just "cost". Then you have to add in the ship, the dive complex and all the support crew. $1,000,000 per day is a thrifty cost to do what these guys are doing...and they're recycling the helium even (which costs even more).

What you're seeing in the video I posted is just staggeringly expensive. Not some trivial jump in the lake.

The danger is off the scale too...nobody will insure these guys. Not during their dives...and not ever after. No one knows what the long term effects of this are. Its why I got out. The danger is just off the hook! Just crazy dangerous.

I am torn.
Is it awesome? Yes.
Do I find the idea horrifying? Yes.
I think I'll stick to the beach.

Is it awesome? Not so much

Is it scarey? Yeah, kind of. More after the fact than in the moment though.

Is it horrifying? Not really, BUT...Only once (at least for me); when I saw / experienced a diving bell seal and lock blow out on mating with the dive complex. I wasn't in the bell (thankfully), but it blew one diver partially out and killed another. Major decompression. Not good. Another reason for "never again".

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
I remember years ago watching a doco about saturation

diving, and the horror story's they talked about.
The two that stuck with me involved the pressure vessel up on deck.
The first had something to do with a shift supervisor (I think he may have been green) causing a rapid de-compression and essentially painting the inside of the vessel red. The second was a bloke using the toilet. From what I remember, he opened the outside valve without closing the inside valve, while still sitting on the toilet, and pulling his intestine's out though his rectum.

They also mentioned that deep saturation shortens your life, is that true? I only ask because you said, nobody knows the long term affects. I've mentioned it before in conversation and would rather not, if not true.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

What is incredible to me is that there are those who have experimented with mixed gasses and have pushed deeper and deeper.

I wouldn't do it!

Also, do you have any stories of sea-life at depth?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Thanks for explaining that

They must build that place above and haul it then submerge it to where they need it then hook things up. The less they have to do down there the cheapest.

a reply to: rickymouse

That's essentially correct. They build as much as they possibly can on the surface. Then, after submerging, they will build as much as they can using ROV's at depth. Divers only go down these days for things which absolutely can't be done with ROV's, and you'd be surprised how much ROV's can actually do. ROV's are far cheaper to operate, and involve far, far, less risk.

a reply to: GAV911A

I don't think anybody really knows for sure what the long term effects are. But yes, I would say it does. If for no other reason, just from the stress alone of the whole thing on the human body.