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A simple bolt on a bridge pier took me two full shifts to get out
We were doing an inspection on the old I-5 bridge over the Columbia, and one of the anchor bolts for our rigging was just frozen solid. I tried heat, impact, and a cheater bar, nothing. Ended up having to cut it with a hydraulic saw, then re-drill and epoxy a new anchor, which meant a whole extra dive just for that. What should have been a 20-minute job turned into about 16 hours total. What's the most stubborn simple fix you've ever had down there?
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jade_jenkins2mo ago
Sixteen hours for a bolt is a special kind of underwater curse. Reading that after stone.lisa's dam valve story makes me wonder what these old structures are cemented together with, pure spite? The universe really picks its moments to make a simple task impossible. At least you got it done without having to spend three days on it.
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stone.lisa2mo ago
Man, that sounds brutal. I read a story from a diver working on a dam who spent three days on what was basically a single valve. The thing was crusted over with decades of mineral deposits, like a solid rock shell. They went through every tool on the barge, even tried a small water blaster, before they finally chiseled it free. Sometimes the easy jobs are the worst because you just can't plan for that level of stubborn.
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