Rafael Rivera was always fascinated with the underwater world since he was a youngster growing up in Brooklyn.
“I loved watching Jacques Cousteau,” Rivera said. “I always wanted to do that. I loved the different sea creatures and animals. But I was raised by my grandmother, so money always played a factor.”
However, Rivera did manage to take scuba diving lessons in Brooklyn when he was just 13 years old.
“I got a little taste,” Rivera said.
After Rivera and his grandmother moved to Weehawken in 1991 and he graduated from Weehawken High School in 1994, Rivera went to study oceanography at the U.S. Maritime Academy, but only managed to stay there one year.
“It cost too much money,” Rivera said. “I had to find a job. I did a lot of handy work, construction work.”
Rivera soon enrolled at Bergen County Community College and received his associate’s degree in biology and science. At the same time, he took a six-month course in commercial diving in Camden. It was a decision that changed his life.
Soon after finishing the commercial course, Rivera was hired as a commercial diver for International Underwater Contractors, learning to use a medical compression chamber for people who were suffering from severe burns and Lyme disease.
“It helped tissue growth and cell regeneration,” Rivera said.
However, there were some other projects that were less than desirable.
“My first big diving experience was fixing a sewage treatment plant in Yonkers,” Rivera explained. “I had to go down to where the plant was sucking up sewage and install a temporary stop gate. I took it for what it was. But I wondered, is this really what I wanted to do?”
It was all part of the learning process for Rivera. Soon after, he was hired to help fix the bridges and structures for the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York, running cable under the Jamaica Bay for electrical conduits. Rivera then went to work at the renowned Smith Mountain Dam in Roanoke, Va., which is the first hydroelectric power plant in the United States. That was a significant diving job, because the dam is 210 feet deep.
“I was sent down to look at the infrastructure,” Rivera said. “It was a little dangerous, because at 100 feet, nitrogen becomes like a narcotic and you feel like you’re drunk and become disoriented. It’s hard to then do work like that, so it’s a very tedious process.”
Plus, returning back to the surface takes some time to allow the body to decompress and recover.
Just last year, Rivera was part of the crew that helped to raise the ship Cape Fear off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, right near the location where John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s plane plunged into the ocean.
“I was there from February to June trying to get the boat up,” Rivera said. “It was a tough job.”
A year ago, Rivera switched jobs and joined the Union 1456 Carpenter Dock Builders and does the underwater repair work on such sites as the Chelsea Piers and Liberty Island.
“Since the Hudson River is getting cleaner, the microorganisms have been eating away at the piers,” the 31-year-old Rivera said. “So there has been a rubber wrapping device that is added protection for the piers, so the piers don’t collapse.”
Rivera goes down to the river floor and wraps the protection two feet into the mud and all the way up the piers. Rivera also handles doing concrete underwater, welding underwater. He services all the bridges and piers in the area. Right now, he’s doing consultations and inspections for the New York Water Club on the East River.
“It’s a different thing every day and I love doing what I do,” Rivera said. “It’s not oceanography, but it’s still fun. Every other day, I’m operating a boat by myself or with a friend, cruising down the Hudson River. I’m not in an office and I’m in the water. I do all kinds of things that really get interesting.”
Although there are some days that he regrets.
“When I do another sewage treatment job, that’s not fun,” Rivera laughed. “I don’t think anyone wants to do that. That’s when it becomes a job.”
Rivera is currently looking to further his education.
“I really want to explore the engineering part of it,” Rivera said. “That’s in the future. I’m happy now.”