The Timex Atlantis 100 rediscovered!

Alas Poor Timex Atlantis 100, I remember this you.  I knew you and wore you well.  We had lots of adventures.  You were very useful for a cheap watch. 

I recently saw the venerable Timex Atlantis 100 digital watch in a store. O.K. my favorite big box store.  You know the one everyone hates.  The one all the trendy hipsters protest against.  Yep, Walmart.  That's the one.  It's about the only place I can afford to shop.  When I was into sailing back in the nineties, I wore a Timex Atlantis just like this one for racing. 

The Timex Atlantis 100 has a count down timer.  I would set it for three minutes, start it when I heard the horn and maneuver my boat--a Flying Scot--to cross the line when the start horn went off.  It was fun and I thought my Timex was highly cool at the time.  When I came across it years later in a cubby aboard my old boat, I found that the finish on plastic portions of watch had worn off and that black plastic/resin segments of the band were disintegrating.  I was going to replace the battery and keep it for a bang around watch anyway.  However, I totally sproinged it when I tried to change the battery.  I had watch pieces every where.  For awhile, I kept a small mound of the bones in my watch box.  But, ultimately, I ended up chucking the watch.  The boat had been donated to charity in the aftermath of a lay off and the watch was a bittersweet reminder of a bygone era.  But, every time I see that watch, I'm tempted to buy it again.

By Rept0n1x (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Kohl's even has an updated watch called the Timex Ironman Atlantis.  It looks similar and has a count down timer but it's not quite the same.  It looks like the band and case might be all rubber and it is just a little more rugged.  Now, if I could only find another yacht . . .