DATE: Sunday, March 30, 1997                TAG: 9703300063

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   78 lines

DIVERS STAY UNDER ALL DAY AND NIGHT FOR A GOOD CAUSE.

Imagine waking up underwater.

``The first thing you want to do is take a breath,'' said Karl Benedict, 29, of Virginia Beach. ``You end up gulping water.''

That's what he and some fellow divers did several times between 2 p.m. Friday and the same hour Saturday as they took occasional cat(fish)naps during a diving marathon in a swimming pool.

The 24-hour dive was one of three in-water events held over the weekend to raise funds for the American Cancer Society. The goal was $5,000, but by day's end, the total was above $7,500.

``I'm ecstatic,'' said Mike Hillier, 50, owner of the Lynnhaven Dive Center, which hosted the event. ``The divers did a first-rate job.''

A separate event, an underwater relay, had divers passing the baton from one person to another in one-hour shifts in the pool.

And children - some of them of remarkable height with hairy chests, but still claiming to be kids - got into the fun with an underwater Easter egg hunt that wouldhave left a bunny soggy.

Each entrant gave $5 to join in the hunt. Working against the clock, they dove to the bottom of the pool to collect weighted plastic eggs and deliver them to a basket at pool's edge.

But the big event was the marathon.

The divers were allowed five-minute breaks every hour to change air tanks and take care of nature's chores. And to eat.

``I was starved every time we came up to eat,'' said Mike Fantone, 36, an assistant diving instructor.

Fantone was one of the more experienced marathon divers, so sleeping underwater was not as big a challenge for him. He actually enjoys it.

``Everything is so quiet,'' he said. ``All you hear is everyone's (air) regulators. And the sound just puts you at ease.''

He joined the marathon just to help out but said the cause took on a far more personal nature as he did some research about how cancer had touched his own family.

``I found out that almost every one of my relatives passed away from cancer,'' Fantone said. ``So then it became an effort to raise money to fight something I might get.''

To pass the time, the divers tossed around a ``Toypedo,'' a large underwater dart made by a Virginia Beach company.

There were more traditional games to pass the time as well. Tic-tac-toe, played on a submersible board, and even Twister were made all the more challenging by the air tanks and gear associated with diving.

As the final hour ticked away, however, the playfulness had largely given way to a dogged determination to beat the clock.

The divers hovered on the floor of the pool, only occasionally floating about.

The final seconds were counted down with voices that reverberated through the pool area and ended with an explosion of applause. For those under the water, the excitement of the ending was far quieter - until someone reached into the water and started pounding the side of the pool.

The divers emerged smiling, but clearly glad to be out of the environment of the fishes.

Their faces were circled in red where their face masks had carved deep lines over the hours. Hands and feet were even more colorful - or, rather, colorless.

Anyone who has ever spent many hours in the water knows the prune-like effect of extended immersion. But when this crew came out of the pool, they looked as if they were ready to make a horror film.

``I'm telling you, my feet are just as bad,'' Benedict said as he stared in amazement at his own hands.

Among the seven divers were the father/daughter team of Melodie Harrell, 13, and Harry Harrell, 47, a retired Navy instructor.

Melodie, a seventh-grader at Larkspur Middle School, said it was all ``real boring but also real exciting.''

``It was harder than I thought it would be,'' said Joseph Moore, 16, a sophomore at Ocean Lakes High School. ``I want to go home and take a nap.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

L. TODD SPENCER

A diving fund-raiser, which included an underwater Easter egg hunt,

at the Lynnhaven Dive Center in Virginia Beach exceeded goals and

raised $7,500 for the American Cancer Society.

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