After returning home to Scotland, I was looking for work in the North Sea. But before I could start, I had to complete an offshore survival course in Aberdeen — including helicopter underwater escape training.During the helicopter escape, one guy decided that the best way out was to rip the seat off and try to escape through the window with the seat still attached!I also had to undergo my diving medical, which at the time included long-bone and chest X-rays. The long-bone X-rays were eventually stopped because the accumulated radiation exposure could actually become a greater risk than the condition they were looking for. In my case, bone necrosis was identified.My first North Sea job was in the Danish sector with OTS. I was transferred onto a ship where the supervisor forgot to give me air during my first dive. When I refused to take part in an initiation ceremony involving being put into a shopping trolley and pushed off the back of the ship, they weren’t exactly impressed!I then joined Subsea Services working on the Ninian Northern and Ninian Central platforms. It was surface-air diving, but with depth pay £1 a foot below 50 feet so there was certainly money to be made.My first dive on the platforms completely blew my mind. The underwater structures looked almost like something from the movie The Abyss huge cathedral-like columns, lights everywhere and divers working beneath the platform. It was an incredible sight.But there were some interesting characters on the team. One superintendent seemed to think he was God, because he effectively decided who got work and who didn’t. He even ordered us to move a container that had been welded to the deck something that seemed completely crazy.Then there was a South African diver who, after being splashed with water, suddenly started punching another diver. Needless to say, he was dismissed and never came back.But the most frightening dive came when I was right at the end of my umbilical and suddenly received an urgent instruction to get back to the basket. There was a problem on the platform and everyone was evacuating.I had to run towards the helideck wearing my hot-water suit while the platform was being evacuated. Thankfully, the situation was resolved before I had to board a helicopter, but it was a huge shock. I was supposed to be going home that day anyway. I just hadn’t planned on leaving quite that quickly.Another chapter in my life as a commercial diver, and another reminder that offshore diving could change from routine to dangerous in a matter of seconds.

From the E.W. Thornton to Saturation Diving:In this episode 9 , I continue my diving stories after leaving the E.W. Thornton and joining Oceaneering, where my diving career took me into some very different and sometimes dangerous situations.I start with a deep Heliox (Helium and Oxygen) surface dive, where I encounter a grouper while being told there are tiger sharks close by. Things get rather more uncomfortable when I’m smacked in the nuts by a thickness meter, before having to swim through an area full of sea snakes!I then join the diving support vessel YUYO off Sarawak, East Malaysia. One dive nearly turns into a disaster when I almost lose my dive partner and there are plenty of barracuda around to add to the excitement.Then comes my first saturation dive. It starts with heat, thirst and the uncomfortable reality of spending long periods living and working under pressure. My bell partner also manages to lose a sizeable patch of skin during the job.There are long days of airlifting mud in complete darkness for 6hrs a very surreal feeling. A damaged BOPs to clean, and sharks swimming around the worksite. At one point I even fall asleep on the job only for the ROV to spot me and report it to the supervisor!After 21 days I’m feeling rough, suffering from a skin infection and more than ready to get out.Finally, I tell the story of a particularly bad dive in the Middle East, where the bell wasn’t working properly. I refused to lock out under those conditions a decision that could have had very serious consequences. But led to myself and my bell partner being sacked.These are the real stories behind commercial and saturation diving: long hours, extreme conditions, close calls, strange encounters and plenty of moments you simply don’t forget.

In this additional Episode, I explain what bell-bounce diving actually was and what it was like to experience it for the first time as a working commercial diver.I cover how the diving bell was used to transport divers to the seabed, how we left the bell to carry out the work, the importance of the umbilical and support team, and the procedures involved in getting back to the surface.I then tell the story of my very first working bell-bounce dive — the descent, reaching the Blowout Preventer, leaving the bell and suddenly finding myself in a real working environment rather than a training exercise.For someone coming from Royal Navy clearance diving, commercial bell-bounce diving was a very different experience, and this dive was the start of discovering just how demanding offshore commercial diving could be. It also led me to my first Saturation dive.