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 As with most activities in Belgium, there is both a Flemish and a French version of the commercial diving course run at the ACEBE school in the Ardennes. Michael Cocks reports on both - and gets a taste of the equipment on offer at the school's quarry dive site. Towards the end of July I spent two days at the Flemish Diving School ACEBE, which is based in Gochenée, in the Ardennes close to the French border. As with most activities in Belgium, there is both a Flemish and a French version of the centre's commercial diving course. Both courses last several months, with the students spending a number of successive Saturdays studying the theory of diving. The Flemish ACEBE course takes 484 hours, which represents 60 working days, 12 weeks, or 3 months. The French course runs over an unbroken period of 9 weeks. My host, Mark van der Esch, whom I had met at the IDSA diving schools' meeting in Panama City, had himself trained at the ACEBE school in 1975. The school's equipment is provided by Comex, and the on-site quarry used for training is 30 metres deep. 
Habitats There are a number of structures in the water, with two habitats currently under construction. The quarry, which is staged so that divers have a number of working platforms and obstacles to deal with, was originally used to extract marble, so the walls are hard to drill. There are two other dive locations on the site - a tank and a pool, or ditch, for the training of specific tools and task training. A two-diver wet bell, called Potverdekke, and a two-compartment 1800 DD chamber complete the installations. All types of diving equipment are used - from freeflow helmets, different types of CV hoods, KMB 27 masks, and bandmasks like the EXO, KMB 18 and the AGA, plus constant-volume and variable-volume suits. The instructors dive from time to time with the students to monitor diving aptitude during safety exercises or work routines. Government In view of the length of the course, a number of students drop out, and on the course I dived with only six, half the original number. The courses are subsidised by the Belgian government - the students paying about £750 each for the course. Some had been diving with commercial companies and had come to get a full qualification; the others all had jobs waiting for them - two in Aberdeen. Civil diving pay in Belgium is better than in Britain. The students could not have been more friendly and coped surprisingly well with my rapid-fire English. I had a total of three dives. I was particularly keen to try the Dräger CV 168 hood, which I had heard a lot about from divers who had seen Dutch, Belgian and German divers using it in the huge Berlin project. The hood takes some getting used to. You have to breathe out through the nose in order to inflate the constant-volume suit, and you only have a light grip on the mouthpiece, so that you can also get rid of surplus air. 
The first dive in a tank made me think it would be impossible for me to master the equipment. But the next day I asked to do a test given to the students in which they have to find and describe an object in the water with their face plate blacked out. I was much more comfortable this time and feel I will be able to use the hood safely when I finally take up the invitation to dive with Benelux Diving.I made the point in my article on IDSA that it is vital that students are checked out before they use equipment that they have not been trained in. With the Dräger and its sister Pommec hood, this is highly important as you have to clear your ears by sucking back and know what to do when the front plate comes open under water. 
Helmets I also had an enjoyable dive in the ACEBE quarry at 21 metres in one of my favourite helmets, the AH3, which seemed much quieter and more comfortable than those I have used in the UK. All in all, I was impressed by the way the centre is run and the enthusiasm of the students. One aspect of the training I particularly applaud is the close control of the training by the government authorities. The theoretical and practical exams are independently marked, and on the last day of the course assessors check the ability of the divers and even some of those who have completed the year are failed. Would that were the situation in this country - but a quid pro quo must be a reduced price for the trainees. One difference with the UK is that there is not the equivalent of the specialist Health and Safety Executive diving team in Belgium, although the Ministry of Labor takes a keen interest in the training methods. Outside the school environment it is quite common for a dive team to consist of only two divers. I now look forward to returning to Belgium to see how the training is translated into practical diving by companies such as Antwerp-based Hydrex. |
© 2001 Underwater World Publications Ltd.