Question about working alone in low viz, I finally stopped trusting my gauge hand

Xena Brown · 2026-09-15T13:05:05.654204+00:00

I do a lot of inspection work in the river channel here in Baton Rouge, and until about 3 months ago I was guiding myself by feel alone in zero viz, which is how I clipped a hydraulic line on a job and cost the company a 6 hour shutdown. A retired diver named Pete who runs our air truck kept telling me to run a jackstay line on anything longer than 40 feet, even on jobs I had done a dozen times before. I finally tried it on a 60 foot intake screen job and the line kept me oriented the whole dive, no wasted time hunting for the same bolt twice. It seems simple but half the guys on our crew still skip it because it feels like extra setup. Does anyone here use a different method for staying oriented in black water, or am I late to the party on this one?

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Question about working alone in low viz, I finally stopped trusting my gauge hand | Commercial Divers - Talk Freely