ALONE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

Deep Diver Chris Lemons was repairing oil pipes 90 meters down when the unthinkable happened

-  Simon Hemelryk

Leaving his fiancée to go to work was harder for Chris Lemons than for most people. The 32-year-old deepsea diver was typically away on four-week jobs several times a year. In September 2012, he would be replacing oil pipes at the bottom of the North Sea, about 200 kilometres off the northeastern Scottish city of Aberdeen.

Chris gave Morag the usual reassurances: “Don't worry. It's a carefully controlled environment," he said.

"I'll miss you," replied the 39-yearold school principal. “But we'll keep in touch all the time." The couple had met five years earlier at a party in Dunoon, west of Glasgow, where Morag worked at a primary school. Chris, a tall Englishman from Cambridge, was a diver and dive-boat crewman taking a course in the area. He loved Morag's gregariousness, while she found him kind and funny. They started dating and soon Chris moved in with her.

The couple lived frugally while he trained in specialized saturation (SAT) diving, a job that involved maintaining seabed pipes for the oil and gas industry. It had its risks, from decompression sickness to drowning-several saturation divers have died in recent decades around the world.

But the work paid well, helping them plan an exciting future together. Their wedding was set for the following April. Morag had recently started work at a school in Mallaig, in the Scottish Highlands, and the couple were building a dream house overlooking the sea. They talked about having children and, after the kids finished their education, moving to France, where Chris had family. It was a joyful time.