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The weird, dark, and scary world of “saturation divers” comes to life in a fantastic Netflix documentary called “Last Breath.”
This is the type of documentary that is educational, informative, emotional, riveting, and shocking. Highly recommend.
But aside from all the whirlwind adventure and emotion, the documentary did something amazing… it opened the door to discover these brave, daredevil “astronauts” of the sea called “saturation divers.”
So, let’s dive-in and learn more about these “aquanauts,” and what makes their career and world, so incredibly fascinating.
First off, what is a saturation diver?
Well, for starters, it’s one of the least known, riskiest, and, weirdest jobs you’ve never heard of.
These highly-skilled, very brave, and somewhat loony divers do construction and demolition work at about 65 to 1,000 (or more) feet below the surface of the ocean.
The oil and gas industry depend on these saturation divers to perform maintenance, repairs, and other assorted tasks to their offshore oil rigs and pipelines. It is very dangerous work and one wrong move could mean a horrifically ghoulish and painful death.
But that doesn’t prevent a select group of brave men from jumping in head first.
While at sea, the saturation divers live on a ship called a “dive support vessel” (DSV).
And 28 days before the divers plunge into the ocean, they isolate themselves inside specially pressurized living quarters called “saturation chambers.”
Once locked inside, they can’t come out. They must remain confined in this small, cramped space for nearly a month in order to acclimate their bodies so they can survive on the harsh ocean floor.
One funny side effect of living in these saturation pods, is the “chipmunk” voices. Saturation divers breathe heliox for the entire time they are in storage, so their voice sounds as if they inhaled an entire helium balloon.
Take a look inside an one of these pressurized capsules:
When the 28-days are up, they travel from the pressurized living quarters to what’s often referred to as the “Bell” — a metal capsule that’s attached to the DSV by a giant tether.
Once inside the Bell, the divers, who are also tethered, suit up in what looks like an astronaut getup. They are lowered into the water, and make their way down to the ocean floor, where the rig is located.
Here’s a look inside an actual “Bell.” You can see why these divers get the nickname “astronauts of the sea.”
This clip is a fascinating look from the “aquanauts” perspective as he falls from the safety of the Bell to the ocean floor.
It’s a scary descent into a dark abyss.
One question many people ask, is if it’s so dangerous, why don’t gas and oil companies use robots to complete these jobs?
The short answer is they can’t.
Remotely operated robots just don’t have the judgement skills nor the gentle touch needed to perform many of these very delicate and dangerous tasks.
Experiments in the 1930s showed that, after a certain time at pressure, divers’ bodies become fully saturated with inert gas, and they can remain at that pressure indefinitely, provided they get one long decompression at the end. In 1964, naval aquanauts occupied the first Sea Lab—a metal-encased living quarters lowered to a depth of 192 feet.
The aquanauts could move effortlessly between their pressurized underwater home and the surrounding water, and they demonstrated the enormous commercial potential of saturation diving.
It soon became apparent that it would be easier and cheaper to monitor and support the divers if the pressurized living quarters weren’t themselves at the bottom of the sea. At this moment, all around the world, there are commercial divers living at pressure inside saturation systems (mostly on ships, occasionally on rigs or barges), and commuting to and from their job sites in pressurized diving bells. They can each put in solid six-hour working days on the bottom.
Once the saturation diver arrives at his location, he can plan on spending about 6 hours working. The entire time he’s there, he is monitored by someone inside Bell, and a team of specialists on the DSV.
The saturation diver is attached to a tether, or an “umbilical cord” that is anchored inside the Bell.
This is the literal “life line” for the diver. These tethers usually contains an 8-part umbilical with a breathing gas supply hose, 5⁄8 inch (16 mm) gas reclaim hose, hot water hose, pneumo hose, tracking hose, a communications and lifeline cable, video cable and a light power cable.
Without your umbilical cord, you are a dead man.
You are in a totally different world when you’re saturation diving… a cold, dark world, where you are the alien.
You may wonder how much a saturation diver makes for this dangerous line of work.
Well, they can earn up to 1,400 (or more) per day.
That may sound like a lot, but when you take into consideration all the risk and danger and isolation involved, you’d think they would make 3x that amount – at least. A tough, dangerous, but fascinating life.
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