Port City Diving Conducts Hull Cleaning Operations in Charleston Harbor
Under the hazy and sea roach-infested waters of the Charleston City Marina, divers from Port City Diving carry out their day-to-day task of cleaning the hulls of sailboats and mega yachts. From the surface, one can only perceive their activity through frantic bubbles rising to the surface.
About Port City Diving
Port City Diving is an operation co-headed by Josh Deaton and his team, proudly serving Charleston Harbor since 2017. Their duty lies in maintaining clean boat bottoms, shielded under the water surface. This is a challenging task since they share their workspace with creatures known as sea roaches, or Ligia oceanica, which often invade their wetsuits and mouth gear.
The sea roaches are not entirely roaches in the typical sense. They belong to the same family as the land-based potato bug but are entirely aquatic. Josh Deaton’s business partner and ground team member, Kirk Brutosky, shared his experiences. Despite the discomfort caused by these creatures, they are not his primary concern. “I’ll deal with the sea roaches all day long, but the skeleton shrimp I can’t stand. They got in my ear a few times, and I was like, ‘That’s it, I quit,’ ” said a jestful Brutosky.
A Day in the Life of a Port City Diver
Beginning each workday with coffee on a time-worn couch amidst damp bodysuits and oxygen tanks, Josh Deaton outlines his task for the day, which includes generating a list of boats requiring cleaning. These include boats with names like ‘Why Knot’ and ‘Reely Blessed’. The difficult tasks, tagged as “big nasties” by Deaton, involve hulls overrun with barnacles due to improper painting or negligence.
Over the recent years, Charleston has emerged as a favored halt for boat owners traveling along the East Coast, keeping the Port City Divers engaged all year round. “Boats can’t be in the Florida waters during hurricane season, so they started staying here,” explained Deaton. “A lot of people will also come down here for the winter and go back north during the summer.”
A Transition That Makes a Difference
After a six-year stint in the Army, with three years as a paratrooper, Deaton returned home to Charleston and started out as a freelance diver. His passion for the job and entrepreneurial spirit led to him founding one of Charleston’s busiest boat hull cleaning companies.
Despite challenging conditions, the divers of Port City Diving are committed to their task. “It’s physically demanding, not much visibility and a lot of elbow grease,” Deaton commented on their daily struggles, emphasizing the sheer dedication required for their line of work.
