In this paper a cross layer protocol, referred to as an underwater ad-hoc communication (UAC) protocol, is proposed for underwater acoustic networks (UANets). An underwater node (UN), which tries to transfer data to another UN or a buoy in ad-hoc manner, can access channel as well as determine routing path by employing the UAC protocol. The channel access, route determination, and reliable data transfer are designed being adaptive to underwater environments. In addition, we propose both UN and packet architectures in order to efficiently implement the UAC protocol for UANets.