Bottom Time: The Important Lessons I’ve Learned While Diving With Over 200 Watches
I first crawled onto a shipwreck when I was 20 years old. I wasn’t a diver yet, but it was the most daring adventure I’d ever undertaken. The wreck, the 260-foot freighter Francisco Morazan, was half submerged, lying about 300 yards offshore from the uninhabited South Manitou Island in Lake Michigan. To get there, you have to catch a ferry from the mainland, then hike a couple of miles across the island, descend a steep slope to the beach, and then swim. I was not a confident swimmer back then, and the water was icy cold. My friend, Chris, and I paddled out to the wreck, and the rusted carcass loomed above us, twisted steel evidence of her violent demise in 1960 when she ran aground in a storm. We awkwardly climbed up on the jagged, guano-slick deck, risking tetanus and who knows what else. I became an explorer that day and perhaps even an adult. On my wrist: the Seiko dive watch I’d bought at a mall a few years earlier.
Photo: Christopher Winters
I really wish I still had that watch. Though not technically a “dive,” it was my first aquatic adventure with a dive watch on my wrist, and it set in motion a life I could have never imagined. Since then, I’ve largely made my career out of diving with watches. Since getting my formal scuba certification in 2008, I’ve racked up over 600 dives and, by my rough count, have worn over 200 different dive watches on my wrist. The New York Times even wrote a story about my rather niche vocation. It’s a bit ridiculous when you think about it. After all, as most people know, a traditional dive watch is no longer really necessary for diving, despite our feeble justifications. I’ve been fortunate enough to take everything from a Fossil Breaker (remember those?) up to a Richard Mille RM-032 deep.
Given their obsolescence, what’s really the point of reviewing a dive watch? After all, the criteria for what makes a good dive watch are pretty simple: track elapsed time, be legible, don’t leak. Well, among all those watches I’ve dived, a couple leaked, a few bezels have gotten jammed, but most of them performed just fine. But more importantly, at least to some of us – and if you’re reading this, I’m guessing it includes you – there are a few lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Photo: Gishani Ratnayake
The More Expensive It Is, The More You Should Expect Of It
Usually, when I’ve received a sample watch from a brand to take diving, I’ve had to sign a loan agreement stating that I am responsible for the watch and will return it in the same condition. With something like a Blancpain, Rolex, or Richard Mille, that can give one pause and make the palms clammy. Before signing, I’ve made it very clear that diving is hard on equipment, especially a precision instrument worn on the wrist, exposed not only to water pressure but also salt, sand, snags on gear, and impact on boat ladders and scuba cylinders. Assuming it survives the dive and doesn’t fall into the abyss, it’s likely not coming back in the condition it arrived at my doorstep, swaddled in bubble wrap.
Photo: Christopher Winters
Now, these are press samples that are given with the understanding that they are for a dive review, so they are not a real financial risk for me. But I’ve also done plenty of diving with my own watches, even a vintage Tudor Submariner and a rare Doxa T.Graph. There is obviously risk involved, but I’m of the belief that it’s more of a shame to leave a well-built dive watch home than to risk damage or even loss (I’ve never lost one, by the way). After all, shouldn’t we expect something that costs more to perform better? I’d say that a $15,000 Fifty Fathoms has the best materials, build care, and thorough testing than, say, a Blancpain x Swatch Scuba Fifty. So go forth and use them as intended. Most well-made dive watches have survived, and will survive, more than you can.
Nice Things Can Be A Distraction And You Don’t Want To Be Distracted When Diving
This may sound like a contradiction to what I just wrote above. But my point here is, don’t be so concerned about your shiny wrist candy that you put yourself in danger. After all, diving is an inherently risky activity. You’re venturing into a harsh environment where humans were never really meant to survive. Dive gear is life support equipment, and care needs to be given when suiting up, checking your kit, and then paying attention to it, and your dive plan and your data while you’re kicking around the briny deep. If you’re overly concerned about your watch or so obsessed with getting an underwater wrist shot that you forget your weight belt or don’t notice you’ve surpassed your no-decompression limit, then you were probably better off leaving the watch on the boat or in your hotel room. When you’re focused on what’s on your wrist, you tend to behave differently, like favoring a bum knee while running, and it’s a distraction. Make sure it’s strapped on tight, set the bezel, then go have a safe dive.
It’s Not About The Watch
Related to my previous point, I have a relevant anecdote, and it’s one I’ve told before on this very site. Several years ago, I was a guest of Blancpain on a weeklong liveaboard dive trip to the remote Revillagigedos archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. On the very first dive of the trip, we splashed in on a site called The Boiler, a rock pinnacle that rises from the sea floor. I was wearing a Tornek-Rayville Milspec from the early 1960s, a very rare watch, and as I descended, my eyes were glued to my wrist, not only out of fascination but perhaps trepidation, waiting to see the case fill with seawater.
Photo: Mark Strickland
I had a GoPro camera on a short selfie stick and was intent on getting a photo of this moment. Just as I raised my arm in front of my chest and had the camera aimed back at me, I caught something in the corner of my eye flash past me. A dolphin. But wait, it had two tails. An illusion? No, the second tail was smaller, a pup emerging from the womb. The mother kicked and flapped around me, seeming to interact. Did she need assistance, or was she simply curious about me, or perhaps showing off her new offspring? Whatever the case, I quickly forgot about that watch on my wrist for the rest of the dive, during which I also saw numerous giant manta rays and a whale shark. That Tornek-Rayville faded to the background, a supporting piece of gear on what remains one of my most memorable hours underwater.
The Most Important Function Of A Dive Watch Is To Collect Memories Of Adventures, And To Inspire Future Ones
Photo: Christopher Winters
You’re probably seeing a pattern here, as well as a progression. Given the fact that digital dive computers are the state of the art these days, tracking everything from no-deco time to depth, temperature, and even heart rate, and then syncing with an app for later bragging rights, the poor dive watch seemingly has little left to do. But I’d argue that being freed of the necessity of being a primary bottom timer, a dive watch can serve a less tangible but still important function. Look down at your wrist at your desk the week after diving a deep wreck or swimming with a birthing dolphin and you have that small, personal reminder of the experience. The scratched steel, faded bezel, sweeping seconds hand were all there with you. That watch is the one thing you never have to take off, through thick and thin, and for that reason, it is the ultimate collector of life’s memories. And then it inspires you to plan the next one. It’s been that way for me ever since that first shipwreck when I was 20 years old. I wish I still had that first Seiko, but I’ve had plenty of other adventures with countless other watches since. And I’m far from being done.
Hodinkee
