When working on or around water, I'm always the first one to jump into a Mustang Suit.
Like on this survey, looking for something mysterious, and very valuable: the discovery made us warm, but the search was very, very cold.

 For some reason or other, some pieces of my Luggage have been through 4 Hurricanes and a shipwreck.

I cant say that everything survived these incidents, but a surprising number of items did.

 Please not that these were events that caught me by surprise. whenever I am Planning to get sunk or inundated,  I usually rely on drybags or Pelican Cases.

But I never thought I would need that level of protection in the Bell tower of an old church, which is where I have kept my office for the last 25 years. But when a hurricane lifted up the roof enough to drench the interior, the contents of my Remowa Case survived without harm. Not the same for my book shelf.

When in the Andes Mountains Supporting a scientific expedition studying the Origins of Life in Extreme Environments, we count on good communication. This Motorola Walkie-talkie kept us all in contact and out of trouble

This Classic G-Shock has been through it all and just wont die. I keep it strapped to my dry bag when not diving.

Yeah, I went thru the Leatherman phase, and several other brands of multi-tools, plus inumerable cheap knock-offs that I recieved as gifts from well meaning family members that dont understand the concepts of Quality, Minimalism, and beauty of design.
But after years of spare knives pilling up, I decided to work my way through the spares and find out why they sat on the shelf for all those years. 
At the time of this writing, I'm carrying a genuine single folding blade, half serrated, stainless steel Victorionox knife. Works fine.

This waterproof bag is by Overboard, and what’s in it.

As a sailor, I’m always aware that I might at a moments notice be required to jump into a little boat, either from the deck of a ship, or from a pier, and head off to sea for an unknown period of time. It has been as much as a week, and I have a friend that hoped on a tug on an august day and didn’t get off until December.

A rule of the universe, you can never have everything, and you will always be missing something crucial. With that in mind, a few comfort items…

A sweater

A wool watch cap, red

A spoon

A tin of sardines

A copy of ‘le Scarabee d’or”

Back up sunglasses

A swim suit ( ewe)

Goggles ( mask takes up too much room)

Pencil

Write In The Rain brand Notebook

Leather gloves

A plastic Whistle with a compass in it

A pocket knife

Sunglasses

Waterproof wrist watch

$10 in ones

A spare t-shirt that doubles as a face gator

My flask

I got this bag at J.Crew On 5th Ave. in New York, to carry several bottles of very special Olive Oil my wife had received. It was really practical as a camera bag, and although it doesn’t look very outdoorsy, I ended up using it for my Sony HD 2000 Video Camera, Senheuser microphone, and Cheep Noise Cancelling Headphones ( NOT Bose) while climbing 3 Volcanos in the Andes.

Like all NASA Jobs, there was a NASA patch issued for that one, so I sewed it on the bag. It had worn a little on the bottom, so I sewed on a patch from the sponsor of another mission. Now it has quite a few. It might be kind of Gaudi, but somewhere  out there in the world there is somebody that might think its cool.

This might not have been my first choice if it was mine to choose, but I’m stuck with it.

Swiss Army Brand, stainless steel band, monogrammed back plate reads “ Relic Smith. Manager de l’Equipe, 1994 Paris-Dakar-Paris”