Professional diver II class course, final part

Winter is in full swing… unfortunately this was the last day of the training and tomorrow morning we fly back to Warsaw… I guess everyone would like to stay here longer. On the one hand we are happy that we had the opportunity to train at Norsk Yrkesdykkerskole (NYD), on the other hand we would like more and more. Even though we are leaving this is not the end of our underwater work or training.

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Today we started half an hour earlier, already at 8am with underwater welding. In two baskets three divers descended to 6m and on a table at 9m we had to weld metal parts together.

Underwater welding is not easy on the surface, let alone underwater, especially for someone who has not practiced much before (that’s me Magda ). In fact, underwater welding is pretty damn difficult (that’s me Matthew ).

At 9 meters today the visibility was still bad…snow on the surface, cloudy and cold, from time to time the fjord was flowing with ice floes. We stayed underwater for about 1 hour. We changed every 15 minutes, bragging about our skills or lack of them. Today the cold underwater gave us a hard time. Everything worked out, some perfectly, others a little worse… but practice makes perfect.

At 13.00 there was a ceremony to conclude the training in Norway. Dag Wroldsen, co-owner of the school presented us with diplomas and a commemorative T-shirt and baseball cap. It will be quite a cut to appear in such an outfit, representing such a school!

Our plans for this afternoon were to visit Oslo, especially the Viking boat museum, Kon-Tiki…. The fastest way to get to Oslo from here is by bus and then by ferry to the other side of the Oslofjord, it takes an hour…but unfortunately for us it was an hour too long, it was too late, museums are open until 4pm on Saturdays.

So we had a walk around the centre. We entered the fortress and the castle, walked along Oslo’s main shopping street. We even reached the top of the opera house from where we admired the panorama of the harbour. As the museums were already closed we decided to explore the local folklore.

As I mentioned this is not the end of the training, especially underwater welding but you will not have the opportunity to read this story.

Finally, we would like to thank all the team participating in the course:

Romek Palacz, Marcin Milinkiewicz, Wojtek Tylak, Daniel Maluchnik, Igor Bartoszewicz, Przemysław Preiss, Artur Suprowicz, Przemek Dydak

And us Magda Nowakowska and Mateusz Popek

The training was organised by Bałtycki Przedsiębiorstwo Nurkowe EXPLORER as part of the project entitled “Bet on the development of underwater activities”, co-financed by the European Union under the European Social Fund.

Source: podwodna.net Photo: Artur Suprowicz