Divers' Watches

A divers' watch is an essential for any SCUBA diver even if you only dive occasionally whilst on holiday. Diving is essentially placing a human being in inhospitable surroundings, and in diving you must always be wary of your depth, surroundings and air supply. In planning a dive and throughout the dive there is a large amount of timing that needs to be considered by all members of the dive group, and this is why it is important to have a specific watch developed just for divers.

The obvious most important feature of a divers watch is the water resistance. This not only makes the watch splash proof but divers watches should also be pressure tested down to deep depths, at least twice of what you are considering diving to. A divers watch will also have clear, easy to read dials that are luminescent at the tips so they can be read in the dark depths and through a face mask easily. Divers watches always feature a screw down crowd rather than a push/pull seal, this aids in the pressure resistance and water resistance. Most importantly the band will be tough and functional, and usually made of rubber or some other corrosion resistant material that will resist the corrosive effects of salt water and will also be tough and stand up to knocks and scrapes.

When you buy a divers watch be sure that it will work at the depths that you will be diving to, most divers watches will be water resistant and pressure tested for between 100 and 300 meters which should be sufficient for all but the very deepest and specialist divers. Consider that the deepest ever recorded SCUBA dive was just below 300 meters and you will have some frame of reference to work from, most holiday divers will never go below 50 meters. And if you aren't a diver but still like the aesthetic qualities of divers watches then you can be sure that thanks to their extensive pressure testing they are far more durable than the vast majority of timepieces on the market and will survive virtually any abuse you can throw at them.