Freediving in the work place..

[Dan]

This past wednesday I got to freedive at work, and I got paid.
At my place of work we have a fire water tank for our fire supression system. The tank is 25ft tall and about 30ft in diameter. Last winter the first few inches of water froze, and the level probe got jammed, broke, and fell to the bottom of the tank. In the spring managment wanted to have the probe fixed, but the cable that conected to the float was out of reach, and out of sight. Tim, my Plant manager is a scuba diver, and was going to dawn a wet suite and go in him self, but was unsure of his abilities to dive 25ft grab a cable, and bring it to the surface. My work buddie Lee, had heard about the situation and told Tim that I was a freediver, and that it would be an easy feat for me to do, plus I'm in maintance and I'm supposed to fix suff like that. Tim had ask me a littel about my water skills, and how long I had been doing the sport,(1year) and then gave it the go ahead. After I got the thumbs up I had some meetings with the companys saftey team, to work out a confined space permit, and some proper safty steps. I had to fab up a custom ladder, and rig to get in and out of the hatch, wich was 24" round. we also took O2 sampels to make sure the air quality was in range, it was. Then we had to lock out the pump and heat tracing tape, all eletrical, and mechanical dangers where locked out. I also had to wear a saftety harness attached to a reel and tripod, since I was the only one in the tank. I had two safety spoters looking down the hatch. All I had to do was dive down grab the cable, and re attach the cable to the float. So thats what I did, no problems, I thought that the harness would mess me up, but I didn't even notice it in the water. I spent most of the time reattaching the cable to the float at the surface, I did a coupel of more dives to make sure that every thing else in the tank was okay. Lee also was tossing quarters in the tank and having me get them for his amusment, untill Tim wanted to know what was taking so long.
The water was very clean, we use city water to fill the tank. It was like a large low lit pool. I just can't belive I got to do something like this at work, and get paid.

Dose this make me a profesonal freediver, I wish

Dan.

[Pezman]

That rules! Karma 4 u

[IronLung]

This is an old thread, but I've got to post. I am a Lifeguard for Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Rec. This summer, we have had 5 or 6 freediving in-service trainings. We do our diving in a quarry where the rocks for cement used to be mined, but is now full of water, in the middle its over 200 feet deep! Vis is ok, usually about 15 feet. Man, it sure does feel good to get paid to freedive doesnt it?