The small barrel had 6 handles welded on the side for ease of grasping. We spent 17 minutes here at the end of each dive. If the breathing equipment was needed for the next team of divers we would take of the apparatus and use surface supplied air.
The small, black pouches at the top of the barrel are shark repellant (never needed).
Our total decompression time was 22 minutes, not counting ascending time. We made two decompression dives a day with a time interval of about 4+ hours. No bends this season. In the four diving seasons needed for the excavation there was only one case of the bends (probably over 3,000 individual dives).