Scuba-Doc's Dive medicine online

International Marine Contractors Association

Australian Diver Accredidation Scheme

Accommodation
for
PDC Divers

6m Training Tank

Dedicated quay side facility

Complete mobile operation

About Us                                          SAFETY FIRST

Professional Diving Centre trains divers for the international diving market and will now train and certify these divers with ADAS the Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme so they can work internationally without limitations. For SA divers wanting to work only in South Africa and not in the international world of diving then a DOL certification will be issued. The school has the most up to date and well maintained diving and allied equipment, which includes a large number of different types of diving helmets and full face masks including some of the most recent on the market. The school maintains a high standard of training and is known world wide.

The school's position in the harbour, is in the ship repair basin with its own quayside and jetty, and is close to the dry docks so divers can get to see ships on land before diving under them during class III training. The school offers a real diving site and operating conditions that you will not find easily world wide in diver training facilities.

At sea where depths vary between 12 and 200 metres some training dives take place from the dedicated dive support vessel a large steel Catamaran called Deepworx which has accomadation on board.

Dives also take place in a fresh water Quarry which has water depths up to 46 metres and is situated 30 minutes from the harbour and dive school.

Divers are given various tasks to do and at the end of the course have to complete deep air dives lasting over 1 hour each, (including actual Surface Decompression dives on oxygen) with various obstacles and tasks including loose ropes and metal structures, mainly in zero visibility at 40 metres plus.

The school is owned by Grant Jameson a Saturation Diver and Air & Mixed Gas Dive Supervisor as well as a Life Support Technician, who started commercial diving in 1983. He has trained in the USA, U.K. and France.

The instructors in the school are experienced supervisors, as well as part time supervisors from the offshore industry, who assist between offshore jobs.

The school has its own Quayside and jetty with Dive stations on the jetty and along the quay. The offshore air spread is to IMCA offshore specifications with a Deck Decompression Chamber inside a 6m shipping container. Professional Diving Centre has a number of other diving chambers and bells including mixed gas and two saturation diving systems, which also meet IMCA Specifications. The school's has a 14 ton truck to move equipment such as chambers around during mobilisation for diving. At the school there is a six metre deep training tank with large windows for introduction dives to new equipment as well as NDT, welding and rescue drills. There is a welding workshop at the school, which allows students to learn to weld and cut on land before progressing to the underwater welding workbench, in the harbour below the jetty. The jetty and quay dive stations allow for diving between 5 and 12 metres. The dive stations have welding, burning - underwater cutting, hydraulic and pneumatic power tools, air lifting, rigging, search patterns, water jetting and CCTV and still 35mm inspection photography as well as other common diver tasks such as pipelines, flogging flanges, lift bags, etc. Underwater NDT equipment such as the Cygnus 1 Ultrasonic Thickness metre, the Roxby Mk5 C.P. metre and Magnetic Partical Inspection magnets and lights are also used by students as an introduction to NDT techiniques while diving from the school jetty.

If you are serious about a career in commercial and offshore diving then you should think about making Professional Diving Centre your choice. However if you have already done your diver training and it was the wrong school of choice, we can also repair a bad training course. It is harder to break bad habits so try and make certain that you choose the right school from the start. Unfortunately you may only find out how bad your diver training was once you actually start working as a commercial diver or are around other divers to compare.

We are not the only school in the world there are also, other good schools so take your time and investigate and then decide which school will best suit your needs.

PROFESSIONAL DIVING CENTRE OFFERS PROFESSIONAL DIVER TRAINING FOR THE STUDENT DIVER WHO WANTS IT ALL, PLUS MUCH MORE...

If you are serious about commercial diving, then Professional Diving Centre can offer you training which is Professional and Real, but you need to be a hard working mature and responsible adult to attend and succeed in the dive training programe as well as in the commercial diving world after your training.

Professional Diving Centre was the first mixed gas and saturation diving school in the country and is at present the only full time professional diving school offering both air and mixed gas diver training in South Africa.

The school offers all levels of diver training and has been offering diver training since 1987. Professional Diving Centre was a diving contractor who due to continually receiving badly trained commercial divers started a diving school to train their own divers. With the demand for divers from our school increasing, a full time professional diving school was started. The school's instructors have many years of civils and offshore diving experience to ensure you get the correct up-to-date training. The school also invites active offshore supervisors to assist with training, this ensures that the school stays up to date with the latest industry changes.

The school relocated to Durban after the Professional Diving Institute (PDI) closed down in February 2002. Professional Diving Centre is not part of and has never been part of The Professional Diving Institute.

For the last 8 years Professional Diving Centre has been training divers mainly for the offshore diver industry and has built up a good reputation in the industry. Most recently it has been training an increasing number of overseas students particularly from Britain, Ireland and the Middle East. The school trains private divers and supervisors as well as specialist divers. It also specializes in training for small and large offshore / international diving companies. The feedback from divers, supervisors and dive companies has been excellent and we are proud of this, as any other dive school in the world would be.

The school's dive support vessel "Deepworx" has a sat system and surface supply dive control station on board for 4 surface supplied divers; it has gas quads below deck and an HP and LP compressor onboard driven by one of the two diesel generators. The water outside the harbour ranges from 12 to 200 metres just five miles out from the shore.

The class II wet bell training is not just one or two bell dives but a number of training wet bell dives involving actual emergency drills. Wet bell dives covering the wet bell procedures. The dives include loss of voice communications, loss of main gas, Lockout procedures as working diver and bellman rescues of various situations including unconscious diver. Abandonment of wet bell both as diver and bellman as well as surface standby rescue of diver and bellman to the wet bell, These drills take a number of bell dives to complete, the wet bell training will be done properly so that you are competent in a wet bell and able to perform bell tasks and rescues as a working diver.

The schools training is done in real working conditions in the ship repair basin of the harbour and out in the open sea where depths range from 12 metre to 200 plus metres. You will be diving in real working conditions, doing various training drills as well as real diver tasks at various depths in the open sea. The training runs 8 hours a day and 5 days a week. Some of the training dives are longer than some of the working dives that you would be doing such as 3 hours plus on the work task.

When you have thought it through and made up your mind about starting professional diver training or need more information give us a call or contact us on e-mail info@pdcsa.com.