Last October and November, MAT / MAL’s Heather went to Cornwall to do a Surface Supplied Dive Equipment course. The course goes through different equipment used, how to safely use it and then gives you opportunities to practice diving in various conditions. It was a five-week course and something that Heather had been looking forward to doing since she had completed the commercial HSE SCUBA course in 2019, and which had been enthusiastically recommended to her by many friends and colleagues. Heather now shares her experience taking this training further. 

I arrived in Par on the Sunday evening before the course to join the rest of the divers (who had already been on the course for a month doing the commercial SCUBA accreditation). As the only woman on the course, I was fortunate to get my own room in the house of ten other men (a luxury).  

The first day was a classroom session and were introduced to different masks and helmets used and talked through how they worked and how to check them for damage or fault, but from then on, it was diving almost every day and homework every night.  

The first week focused on diving with the band masks (similar to full face masks used in SCUBA). We practiced gas shutdowns, lifting and rigging, inspection, and familiarised ourselves with the tools and equipment we would be using. It took a couple of days to get used to wearing the weighted bell jacket, especially swimming at the surface, but by the end (and with some more practice in umbilical management) it became a lot easier. 

The second week, we moved on to using the Kirby Morgan helmets. There were three versions of model designs, which meant a quick practice in remembering the quirks of each when dressing your diver in so that they were safely locked in but also ensuring they were not sitting around for too long with a weight on their head.  

Figure 1: Heather ready to dive in!

We completed our first exam on dive tables, and we were then asked to come up with a dive plan for the final week, which we would be supervising on our own.  We were given tasks with a few different tools, such as doing inspections, searching along a distance line, scaffolding construction and air lifting (similar to what we practice for archaeological surveys and excavations), as well as the Broco (an exothermic cutting torch) and hydraulic hand motor with grinding disc (not something I will probably get to use again for archaeology, but definitely very fun!).

We also had our first night dive, where we moved through different tool/task stations to help practicing completing tasks with different ranges of visibility and in different environments (something we are definitely familiar with in archaeology). 

We made it over to Plymouth for the third week, for our deeper dives and some chain inspections. This was a great opportunity to practice our comms over the radio as both diver and ‘supervisor’ on comms and practice conveying clear information where video might not be available to help. We also got to enjoy some DJ-ing by the comms team while waiting out our decompression stops. 

The final two weeks were back in Fowey for diving using the LARS (Launch And Recovery System – a cage that gets you to and from the site from the vessel), surface chamber recompression, another night dive and our supervisor week. We were a lot more familiar with everything by then and each other, so the focus was keeping up good communication, good umbilical management, practising with different equipment, and an efficient dress in and out (especially when doing surface decompression, where there are penalties added to your decompression schedule if you don’t get into the chamber and to a recompression depth of 50 feet below surface within 5 minutes of leaving 40 feet below surface during your dive). We also had our last night dive and practised using the hydraulic and pneumatic tools mid-water.
 

Figure 2: Heather using a disc grinder

The final week we rotated roles within a team to go through the roles of supervisor, diver, tender, and chamber operator and attendant on two separate tasks (cube building with scaffold and a hull inspection) that we had written out plans and risk assessments for. I was fortunate enough to have met a rigger offshore earlier in the year who had recently done the course and had shared his notes with me, so I had a better idea of what we would be looking for during these inspections, which helped a lot when writing out my plan.  

We ended the week with our final exam and helped set everything up for the following week where some divers were staying on to complete the offshore top up. 

It was a great experience learning so much about diving (both practical and theoretical), working in a new team, exploring Cornwall and eating some award-winning pasties! I’m really looking forward to this year’s dives and hopefully getting to put my new skills to use soon. 

Are you a woman looking to get into commercial diving? 

While we are fortunate to have a strong female representation at MAT, the current industry percentages of women involved in UK diving is around 30% female: 70% male, and women in the commercial diving sector is said to be far lower. In a survey circulated for our Women and Protected Wrecks project, one reason given for the involvement of fewer women, was lack of female role models in diving. Yet whilst you may have heard of Jacques Cousteau, did you know many women also explored under the waves? Pioneers such as Honour Frost, Sylvia Earl, Dottie Frazer, Susan Bangasser, Sue J Trukken, and Eugene Clark to name a few!

The Honor Frost Foundation even have a podcast, and you can head to one particular episode on Women leading the way in deep water archaeology.

There are also initiatives you can get involved in to either start your diving journey or build confidence such as International Women’s Dive Day: An annual event, hosted by PADI, which celebrates the contributions of women in diving. This year, on July 19th, several events are happening to celebrate such as a dive at Swanage pier  – so mark your calendars!