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     Last weekend, I joined three other divers to perform some archaeological 
survey work on an opium drugrunner ship that sank in 1850 on the Northern 
California coast. We dropped down a cliff using a rope and assembled our gear 
on a flat rock. The others donned wet suits, while I donned my new CF200 
drysuit. After penetrating the surf with a float, archaeological tools and 
camera gear, we set up a search pattern to look for the wreck in water that 
was 49 deg F. After one hour of swimming and searching on the surface, we 
dropped to the bottom (12-25 feet deep) and started a pre-planned search 
pattern. After a while, we finally located numerous China ceramics strewn over 
the bottom. I was cold and needed to relieve my bladder. I decided against 
swimming back to shore, relieved myself in the drysuit, and proceeded to 
photograph the artifacts. Within minutes my legs were freezing. I continued to 
videotape and do still photography until I couldn't stand the cold anymore. I 
surfaced as one leg cramped, and told my divebuddy to head for shore. By the 
time I swam to shore, the other leg cramped. I floated nearly helpless near 
the surf exit point holding on to my camera gear and float. Finally, my dive 
buddy returned and hauled me through the surf zone and I found myself in a 
quiet tide pool. In spite of eating lots of potassium-rich bananas before the 
dive, the blood flow to my legs was slowed by the cold. The lesson I learned 
is to never drink fluids before a dive and never urinate in a drysuit no 
matter how painful it may be! Maybe it's time to invest in a catheter. In 
spite of this incident, I took 3 minutes of video and 19 slide pictures which 
turned out well. I'm going back to the ship this month, but with a wetsuit 
this time!

                                                   Norman Thomas
                                                   UC-LLNL
 "Old divers never die, they just slowly sink"     L-350 P.O. Box 808
  -anonymous                                       7000 East Ave. B235 R1027
                                                   Livermore, CA 94551
                                                   (510) 422-0486
                                                   Email: norman@cm*.ll*.go*

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