Diving the day away

Last Monday I had the wonderful oppertunity to dive at work. One of the Associaitons we manage has a retention pond that they use for irrigation water. In the pond there are three filters that are supposed to be self cleaning. I was to go into the water and remove the filters so that they could be inspected and possibly cleaned.

I went and got my gear serviced since it had been a while since I had dove and I rented two spare tanks as well as having my own tank to use. I got to the pond and set up my gear and other safty equipment. I was tethered to the surface with a length of yellow rope and was ready to go.

As with most endeavors while diving, your dive only goes as well as you planned it. I had to crescent wrenches with me under water, which would have worked great if they both would have been big enough. After getting half of the bolts loose on the first filter I realized that I was going to need another big wrench as well as a lot more air.

I surfaced and explained the situation to my dad and we decided that it might be easiest I just got them cleaned and then we can remove them in the fall, cleaning them in the winter when they are not in use, and reinstalling them next spring. This will give me a little more time to plan and prepare to remove all three.

We called the office and had one of the cowboys bring us an air compressor for jetting the filters and I headed back down with my air nozzle and a wire brush. After another 30 minutes or so I had the filters scrapped down and the bolts re secured on the first filter. So I headed up to the surface to break down gear and head off to the rest of my day.