Hit 500 commercial dives last month and the number that actually got me was $61

Luna Taylor · 2026-10-01T21:50:03.297753+00:00

Logged dive 500 on a pipeline inspection job outside Galveston last month. I thought hitting that number would feel like something big, and honestly it did not. What got me was a $61 check I got in the mail the same week, a tiny royalty payment from an old training video the company shot of me back in 2018 doing a simple flange bolt-up. Five hundred dives of cold water, zero viz, and cramped hose work, and this little check for work I barely remember doing is what sat with me. I started counting things after that, and I realized I have spent roughly 1,400 hours underwater as a working diver, which is my whole adult life in a hard hat. My buddy Ray, who has 20 years on me, just laughed and said the dive you remember is the one that paid the mortgage, not the one with the big number. So now I am curious how you all keep track, do you log total dives, bottom time, or just what shows up on the pay stub? And does a milestone number mean anything to you once you pass it?

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Hit 500 commercial dives last month and the number that actually got me was $61 | Commercial Divers - Talk Freely