Liger sneered sarcastically. “You make it all sound so easy.”
13
STANDING ALONE BEHIND the railing on the Skandi Aurora’s starboard side deck, Gordon closed his eyes while looking up into the clear blue sky, trying to absorb as much of the afternoon sun’s rays as he could. The dive team would be going into the hyperbaric chamber in a matter of minutes, and Gordon wanted his body to feel the final moments of solitary, open-air freedom before being sealed in with the others.
He’d tried calling Chloe on his smartphone earlier that day, but all he got was a voicemail. She’s probably on her way to Australia by now. Just as well. I’ll talk to her when I get back out again.
His girlfriend Ashley wasn’t available either, no doubt due to being in another time zone. Gordon left a message for her too, stating that he would be online when she woke up, hoping they could chat later.
Rubbing his temples, Gordon felt the sun’s heat on his cheeks and forehead. A part of him didn’t want to go back in, telling his conscious mind that it wasn’t too late to walk away. No, I have to do this, he thought. One last job. It’ll be enough for the wedding and the down payment on that house we’ve always wanted. After this, then I can think about my future.
O’Keefe appeared from a nearby doorway. “It’s time, Gordo. Let’s head on in.”
Nodding silently, Gordon followed the other man down the stairs as they headed towards the vessel’s main hold. Saturation diving meant the entire team would be placed into a series of pressurized modules, in order to equalize the crushing pressure of the depths they would be working in.
The watery abyss presented divers with a myriad of dangers that could kill them in equally horrific ways, with the safety procedures to work in such a hostile environment meant that they had to abide by certain rules in order to stay alive.
The deeper down they went, the more gas molecules their bodies would absorb and would stay there, provided the pressure remained constant. The entire team would live inside the hyperbaric chamber until the job was done, and then the pressure would be gradually decreased until all the built up gasses were eventually separated from their bodies, a procedure called decompression.
As Gordon and O’Keefe made their way to the ship’s cavernous lower deck, they were met by the life support supervisor, a guy named Joseph. The tall Texan with graying hair and a handlebar moustache smiled at the two divers and shook both their hands before gesturing at them to squeeze their way into a narrow hatch. “We’ve been waiting for you, gentlemen. All systems go.”
O’Keefe slid in through the short trunk, legs first. Gordon followed using the same technique. Langley and Haakon were already inside, waiting for them.
The chamber had two separate sections. The first and smallest capsule, which they had just entered, was the TUPC, or transfer under pressure chamber, popularly called the wet pot. This universal module also contained a closed hatch at the top where the diving bell would be temporarily attached to in order to bring them down into the seabed.
A second side hatch led to the second chamber containing their day room, which consisted of benches along the narrow walls and a removable table occupying the center. At the very end of that section were their bunks.
By the time he got into the wet pot, Gordon had already begun to experience a minor bout of claustrophobia, but he quickly put it away past the back of his mind, lest the other guys see it and make fun of him.
O’Keefe slid his way into the day room and poked his head towards the bunk area. Haakon and Langley were already lying in two of the lower bunks, having commandeered them on a first come, first serve basis, but with only four of them inside the six-person chamber there was still another lower berth available. “Yo Gordo, you want the last low bunk, dude?”
Gordon stayed in the wet pot as he checked his toiletry bag to make sure he had all the stuff he needed. “No, that’s okay. You can have it.”
“Alright!”
Joseph’s voice could be heard from the outside through the still open hatch. “Final check. You guys got everything you need?”
All four divers uttered their approval. Gordon turned and used both hands to close the inner hatch with a solid thunk as he pushed at it with his foot to reinforce the seal around the O-ring. “Closing hatch.”
“Okay, sealing you in,” Joseph said as he too began to close the outer hatch from the opposite end. “See you all in about a month.”
Minutes later, everyone heard the hissing of air as the blowdown procedure began. Deep sea divers had to breathe in heliox, a gas mix composed of mostly helium and oxygen, with trace amounts of other elements. The life support technicians monitoring the chamber would also gradually increase the inside pressure, and Gordon could already feel his ears popping as he started his equalization routine.
With nothing else to do, Gordon sat on the closed toilet seat jutting out of the side of the wet pot. This small utility room also doubled as a bathroom, and even their sewage would have to be pressurized. The divers had to coordinate using the intercom with the techies outside in order to flush the toilet and empty the sink contents properly. Every procedure in the chamber, no matter how small, had to be done with care.
The other three men got out of their bunks as they also started to equalize with the ever-increasing pressure. Haakon and Langley settled down in the day room, their attention absorbed in books and electronic videos while O’Keefe pranced back and forth in between the modules like he was on a drug high.
All four of them could hear Joseph outside, using a wrench to bang on the numerous hatches and walls, testing for leaks. Even though the dive team was separated by only a few inches of steel from the rest of the ship’s crew, they were now living in their own world, and they would be unable to get out until they fully decompressed after the job was done. If any problems were to occur while they were confined inside the hyperbaric chamber, then they would have to deal with it on their own.
O’Keefe started singing a hip-hop tune, only for his voice to suddenly change to resemble Donald Duck’s as the helium had its effect. Gordon remembered his first ever experience being stuck inside a hyperbaric chamber with five British divers as companions during a North Sea job. He couldn’t understand a word they said during the entire month he was in there, even though they all had spoken in English.
Haakon turned towards the two younger men while taking off his headset. “The first time I called my wife from inside this place, she thought I was somebody else making a crank call and she contacted the police.”
“Oh, my girlfriend knew who I was when I called her the last time I was in here,” O’Keefe said. “But she kept laughing at me. She said she needed a duck translator in order to understand what I was saying.”
Gordon smiled as he stayed in view of the camera looking down at him. The life support technicians would be monitoring them during the whole procedure. The blowdown was expected to last for at least ninety more minutes until the inside pressure of their chambers matched the bottom of the seabed they would be working in.
Langley looked up from the pocketbook he was reading. “Hey guys, don’t forget to take the tops off your shampoo bottles before they explode.”
“Oh right,” O’Keefe said as he scrambled over to where his toiletry bag was. Unzipping the top, he quickly made sure all the plastic bottles were open in order for the liquids to pressurize properly. The only way to pass food and supplies to the four of them was through a small side airlock, and those contents would also have to be equalized beforehand.