The Watch Dude: Three Solar Dive Watches for the Sun and Sea

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Three Solar Dive Watches for the Sun and Sea

With summer just around the corner, the sea and the sun are beckoning many of us back to the beaches. For watch enthusiasts, it brings up a question:

What's a good men's watch for both the sun and the sea?

If a watch harnesses the power of the sun, it allows you to enjoy quartz accuracy without ever having to worry about batteries. As a watch collector with many a dead quartz watch to my name, I find solar power to be an awesome feature.

Photo by Quinvo - Laser 4.7 naviguant sur l'étang de Thau avec Amandine à la barre. (CC By SA 2.5)

While a quartz solar watch may never have the collectible cachet of a Swiss-made mechnical watch, it would remove many hassles and open up a whole new world of reliability. That's why I've recently been surfing for solar powered alternatives to traditional quartz or mechanical watches.

Surfer - By Eric Nelson (Flickr: 2010 US Open of Surfing) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I've recently found three watches that might be perfect for the sun and sea. They come from the Seiko family. One is a Seiko and two are Citizens.

The first watch is a Seiko Solar SNE 109 Dive Watch with 200 meter water resistance and a unidirectional rotating bezel. The watch is nicely proportioned with a 42 millimeter diameter case that is a comfortable 12.2 millimeters thick. The polyurethane strap is a well-proportioned 20 millimeters wide. It comes in various dial colors and is a nice looking watch from any angle. It can also be found a great price points on Amazon.

The next watch I like the looks of is the Citizen Eco-Drive Scuba Fin Dive Watch. It gets extra cool points for having an actual name in addition to the requisite series of numbers. This watch has a 46 millimeter diameter case that is 12 millimeters thick. It has a stainless steel band that is a manly 26 millimeters wide.

Of course, to be a real dive watch, you expect a watch to have 300 meter water resistance. That's the depth you need for a serious SCUBA diving watch. The
Citizen Eco-Drive Professional Dive Watch (shown below) meets that criteria easily. It has a uni-directional rotating bezel, a screw-down crown, and a 48 millimeter diameter case that is 19 millimeters thick.

It's a big and clunky watch, but it brings a serious set of specifications down to the sea and into the depths below. You never know when a bit of extra stainless steel on your arm could come in handy!