My last official project as a student was underwater dredging. Divesafe has a custom made low power underwater dredger which uses compressed air from their low pressure compressor to create a siphon. With this siphon one can dig trenches, search for lost or buried items, clean out fish pens or a variety of other underwater applications. For our diving operation we needed two divers to operate this dredger. One diver would be maneuvering the underwater dredger and the other diver would be holding down the top of the siphon so that it would not be directly perpendicular with the seabed. This was necessary because if the siphon was perpendicular all the silt and gravel it was pulling up would come showering straight down on top of us.
Our mission was to search for anything of value. I was able to find a calculator and a pair of safety goggles. It is amusing those things someone might find useless and just throw into the ocean becomes a ‘find’ when found underwater. This was a really enjoyable project and I could have stayed under for hours searching my locker (Davie Jones’ Locker).
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