need help finding a dive watch

[Louie]

Andrew,

I forgot to mention, a water-resistant sport watch is not always suitable (or durable enough) for diving.

For diving, a watch should be 200 metres water resistant and it should be a DIVE WATCH - not a watch for watersports, active lifestyle watch, etc.

 

[WIND N SEA]

ill only be snorkeling
MAYBE diving down 10-15 ft max a couple times a session

 

[rongoodman]

I have a Seiko Kinetic which I like and wear daily, but never really got into the habit of looking at it underwater, as compared to my computer. Good service from Blue Dial too.

 

[Dave C]

That guy fed you some B.S. when he said that changing the battery might "compromise" the water resistance of a watch. I've had a Citizen for maybe 25 years and have changed the battery several times with no problem. Many good diving watches use batteries.

 

[halocline]

what is the rotating bezel for?
a marker?

Yes, I set it to zero when I begin the dive, so it's extremely easy to view elapsed dive time. Regardless of the time, the bezel says 30 when I've been underwater for 30 minutes.

If you have a dive computer, certainly you'll end up looking at that more often, but dive computers can easily fail; a reliable watch is a good back up for dive time; while another diver's computer or gauge can be used for depth info. You won't have NDL info, but you planned your dive, right?

For snorkeling, of course, you don't really need any of this, but it is nice to have a watch that you can wear in and out of the water. That's part of why I like the smaller dive watches. If I'm going to spend hundreds, I'd like to have something I want to wear on land too.

 

[Guba]

I've been diving Armitron (yes, walmart) for ten years. I chose it because I had vision needs, and the digital display on this watch is fairly large. True, I'm on my third one because I didn't want to dive with it after a battery change, but for a whopping $14.99 per watch, it's almost as cost effective as replacing the battery and seals.
Best watch story...we were diving at a lake and a fellow (a LDS owner) spotted my watch. He asked me about it because he had never heard of that brand of "dive watch". Then he showed me his beautiful Rolex Submariner. I commented on it's stunning beauty, paused and then asked, "what time is it?" He replied, "10:30". I glanced at my cheap timepiece. "Son of a gun...that's what mine says, too!"
If it's for show, fine. But get a watch that will do what you want it to do.

 

[Atticus Lake]

Wind N Sea ... it's out of your price range, but you might still consider a real dive computer, like an Oceanic Geo. Now that the Geo 2 is out, the original Geo can be got at a pretty decent price, and it's a pretty good computer that can also be worn as a watch.

The advantage is that if you get into diving down a little while snorkeling, it will log all your depths, and indeed dive profiles, for you, so you can dive without looking at it and see what you did later. (Also logs temperature.) And if by any chance you get into scuba later, it will make a decent dive computer. Then a backup computer when you buy an air integrated one.... (I've been down this road!)

Problems: to get all the info off the watch, you need the data cable; it can't all be accessed on screen. Also some people -- including me -- have had battery problems, although mine seem to have been fixed. See "Oceanic GEO eating batteries!!!!".

All the best.

 

[diver 85]

Here's what I've used ---exclusively---since about '88 or '89(& back when a diver had to keep his own time UW--ie no computers).......Have been to 170' & hit the buttons UW all the time, no problems @~1k dives.....

for under 30 bucks to your door...
Amazon.com: Casio Men's DW290-1V Classic Alarm Chronograph Shock Resistant Sport Watch: Casio:…

 

[Dyno Bill]

You can get the G shock basic witch for like 45 bucks and you cant kill them. I'v had one on every dive I have done, had to replace a few from them being pulled off hunting lobster in holes and the one I have now is so thrashed it's nearly unreadable from welding but it still works.

 

[Nemrod]

what is the rotating bezel for?
a marker?

If you seriously want a real dive watch then you need to understand the game really begins at about 500 dollars with some excellent exceptions and that a dive watch has a one way ratcheting bezel which is used to track your dive time---do you not know how to use a bezel? You can use it for elapsed time or time to zero, count down.

Timex Triathlon, Casio G Shocks, work good, no big loss when it gets lost, useful life, like a disposable razor, good for a few days, months, 30 to 150 dollars, some people like them, some don't

Quartz/electric/battery drive, cheap, St Moritz Momentum, useful life one to five years, around 100-200 dollars, cost effective and attractive

Citizen Pro Diver Eco/electric/capacitor, useful life more than a decade, 300 to 500 dollars tough, attractive, durable watch

Seiko Automatic/mechanical auto-winding spring motor, examples are the infamous Orange Monster, tool watch, tough, durable, big, so ugly it hurts kinda look, nobody gonna mistake it for a gurly mahn watch, easily last decades with little attention, 250 to 1,000 dollars. BTW, Seiko has quartz drive and Kinetic drive models also. There are fakes around so shop wisely if shopping from internet.

Hope this helps.
N