If you are a faint-hearted person, saturation diving is not a good career for you. In saturation diving, scuba divers go to extreme depths, usually to do their work on underwater pipes or wells laying deep below the surface. 

They can stay days or even weeks to finish their work and back to the surface safely because of the decompression stops they need to conduct for off-gassing, and after surfacing, they also need a few days to regain their health and get rid of any side effects.

Dive deep with us to know what exactly saturation diving is, what it is used for, and how to make it your career.

What is saturation diving?

Saturation diving is a harsh type of diving in which a scuba diver stays at extreme depths for a long time. The depths range between 650 ft and 1000 ft underwater in which a diver should perform deep sea work, like tunneling and building.

Saturation divers usually work for oil companies or even telecommunication industries. Saturation diving can be useful in science for studying the physiology of divers under pressure, and is even used for space training by NASA. As a result of being at these extreme depths, the body of the saturation diver becomes fully saturated by the breathing gas . To safely return to the surface, they need to ascend very slowly, making numerous decompression stops along the way.

How saturation diving works

Saturation diving is named that because while the saturation diver is breathing, the gas is dissolved by the body’s tissues, up until becoming fully saturated (the point in which no more gas can be absorbed). Complete saturation is typically achieved within the first 24 hours.

Saturation diving is completely different from recreational diving. Recreational divers have a limited bottom time to avoid oversaturation in order to return to the surface without conducting decompression stops.

Saturation divers will need to conduct numerous decompression stops on their ascent to off-gas safely. These stops can last for weeks! Unlike recreational divers, saturation divers cannot use regular air for breathing at such depths because the partial pressures become toxic. Instead, they typically breathe heliox (a mixture of oxygen and helium), with a small amount of nitrogen. This mixture can protect them from getting tremors that can happen from using the heliox mix at depth.

Underwater, saturation divers wear a hot-water suit which is a wetsuit that is designed to have tubes to deliver hot water and circulate it around the suit to keep the diver warm while working.

The life of a saturation diver

The work of Saturation divers at depths can last for days, or even weeks. At these depths, There are isolated champers called living quarters where divers spend around 16 hours a day sleeping and eating.

They have eight hours to dive and do the needed work in something called “the bell.” The pressure in the bell is the same at the chamber and can be lowered to the seabed using a tube from the surface called umbilical, its job is to provide breathing gas to the diver.

There a dedicated team monitors both temperatures and gas content to ensure the safety of the divers underwater.

How do you become a saturation diver

Saturation diving is one of the best paid scuba diving jobs, as a result of the intense work conditions in addition to the dangers that are associated with diving in such extreme depths for long periods. If you are interested in this scuba diving career, there are a few simple steps to follow:

First, you must obtain your professional commercial diving certification. And for this, you need:

1. To be 18 years old at least.
2. Achieving your advanced recreational diving certification.
3. Taking a Public Safety Diver certification.
4. Finishing the Rescue Diving course For Commercial Diving certification.

Next, you will have to obtain a sufficient years of experience at the next types of scuba diving:

1. Offshore diving.
2. Deep sea diving.
3. Mixed-gas diving.

The final step to become a saturation diver is completing the Saturation Diving program which is available at only a few select institutions. This program involved medical training, underwater welding training, technician courses and more.

Without doubt, you will spend years to gain the needed experience and qualifications to become a saturation diver. This is because to become a saturation diver, you need to have a wide set of skills to be able to handle such the intensive conditions of working.