Diving the old North Sea platforms in 2025, wow that felt different
Was up in Aberdeen last month for a refresher course and we got to do a familiarization dive on one of the older jackets before they decommission it. Man, I remember doing bell runs out there back in the late 90s and the visibility was always brutal, like 2 feet on a good day. This time it was clear enough to see the whole structure and honestly it looked like a ghost town. No marine growth on some of the upper crossbeams, the anodes are almost gone, and the silt around the base is way higher than I ever remember. Got me thinking, how many of you guys are seeing older infrastructure in worse shape than the surveys show? The client rep said they only planned for 4 hours of bottom time but we used almost 6 just on inspection. Is that pretty normal now, or are we just getting slower as we get older? Also, anyone else notice the new divers don't even know what a hard hat feels like, they just want the full face mask and video feed? Not knocking it, just different.