Mission Journal 2 — Roger Garcia: Mission Day 2: Tuesday, December 6th, 2005
The intent of my Day 1 journal was to write, of course, about the Day 1 accounts. However, if you read my Day 1 journal, you know that was not the case. I decided to write about what some people fail to see… “The Big Picture”.
You can read about what we did today from one of the other guys journal if you want, I prefer to write about “The Big Picture”. So it’s day 2, sure they’re working out in cold water for 4 hours at a time, with current, using hydraulic tools and ultrasonic metal thickness detectors, but what’s really underneath all this? What’s the big picture?
To me, this is about them. Them being the US Navy’s 2005 graduating saturation divers from class 06–10–SAT. These Navy saturation divers who for a long time now, would otherwise not have an opportunity to saturate in an open water environment during their entire careers, much less during training. Unless a job like the USS Monitor comes along, where Navy saturation divers worked along side NOAA and NURC divers to raise her turret, odds are these Navy saturation divers from class 06–10–SAT may never have an opportunity to make an open water saturation dive.
This is about them, about giving this class the experience of an open water saturation dive. The added and maybe unintentional benefit of this, is that the Commanding Officers and Master Diver of these men, Capt Mark Helmkamp (Supervisor of Navy Diving), CDR Glenn Allen (MDSU TWO), LCDR Druso Daubon (Asst. Supervisor of Diving), and MDV Lyle Becker (NEDU Saturation Master Diver), have an opportunity to see their men working out of Aquarius, an open water saturation system that can prepare them for the real thing.