I was fully trained for this, which involved testing welds to make sure that oil platforms or wind turbines are structurally safe.
Luckily for me, the oil industry took a downturn and there was not much work happening when I got approached to do something different. I was asked to go on a boat to oversee deep sea exploration and deep-sea salvage operations (what I'm doing now!). We found many shipwrecks, which I found fascinating, and they were located in places where no one had ever been to before. It is incredible to think you are the first person to see a ship again since the day it sank. Some of the wrecks I have visited are so deep you can still read newspapers and letters that went down with the ship all those years ago!
While exploring wrecks and other things, we even had to deal with modern day pirates in the seas near Somalia. We had security onboard to help us with the pirates and fitted the boat out so that the pirates could not board us. During my time offshore, I got to sail most of the world and see countries I never would have visited otherwise. This was such a fantastic experience!
