Guest post by Alexsandar Marjanovic
Aleksandar Marjanovic is a watch lover and software developer living in the Balkans. He wanted to be an explorer and adventurer but became a software developer instead. He fell in love with watches after reading the first Dirk Pitt novel, where an orange dial Doxa is mentioned repeatedly. Today, he shares his journey from lusting after a vintage Tudor 9401 to adventuring with the Tudor Black Bay 58.
Checkout from our hotel in Sevilla was quick. Everything was already paid, and we just needed to leave our keys at reception. Across the street, opposite the small square, is a taxi station. A quick glimpse at my watch that is safely tucked under the sleeve of my new M65 jacket shows that we have more than half an hour until our train leaves. Enough for one more coffee. Mornings in Seville are cold even though it is the end of April, and the sun was just up. It rises later in Spain, delaying the day, as Hemingway wrote. My thoughts were interrupted the old taxi driver who got my backpack and threw it in the back of the car before I could say anything—I could only hope that all my camera equipment was undamaged.
– ¿A donde? he asked us.
– Estación Santa Justa.
– ¡Si!
My mind drifted. I was looking at how the snowflake hands on my watch reflected light while the song on the radio was singing about Old Town Havana, in Cuba. The taxi driver was whistling and playing drums on the dash.
The song on the radio and the taxi driver’s sing-along took me back to my own trip to Havana, before watches, before posting on Instagram, before pandemics, and masks—simpler times, in real Havana. Havana Centro is a place to visit. Some guides would tell you not to go there, but we ended up sleeping there for four days in a small room that had a window looking into a garage. Back then I had my beat-up Fossil on my wrist and I really didn’t care about watches.
Finding the Watches
“We simply wore Rolexes because they didn’t leak.”
The strange whirlwind that the pandemic brought made me fall in love with watches. Or more accurately with stories about the watches and people who wore them while doing epic things. This journey took me from the obvious Seiko SKX007, to a few G-Shocks that I said I would never buy, to a Seiko SRPE03 King Turtle, the one with the black waffle dial. It was a gift from my wife for my 33rd birthday that ended up on my wrist 4 days a week, sometimes more. It became my go-to watch, my beater, the one to make memories. Snorkeling on Naxos, standing in the Olympic stadium in Athens, and flying in what must have been the smallest commercial plane ever made. It was (and still is) perfect for me. I know that the bezel is a little off, misalignments here and there, the cyclops is not on-point. It doesn’t keep time that well. But I love it. I couldn’t justify buying new watches when I knew I would end up wearing this one. Then things happened that set me to uncharted waters…
I was laying in my hotel room in Cyprus after a whole day at the beach when I got a notification on my phone. Watch correspondent from the deep, author, and adventurer Jason Heaton was talking about his watches. It was a no-brainer to hit the play button. I was looking at it with a crazy stare in my eyes until one watch made me pause the video. The Tudor Submariner 9401 (I even thought the bund strap looked cool). Of course, I had heard about the 9401 before. I knew the story. Marine Nationale and its Tudors. Creating an icon with the request to change the hour hand to be more readable under water.
The 9401 is awesome. The only problem is I probably only had enough money for the bund strap. Maybe I would make it work in some crazy scenario, but I’m a big advocate to wear and use, but not abuse, your watches. Would I have the same perspective when something that old and expensive is on my wrist? Ok, as a software developer I won’t dive USS Hermes any time soon; the biggest adventure I can plan is probably hiking Machu Picchu or revisiting Havana—maybe a 9401 would be fine on my wrist. But clumsy as I am, if I hit that watch on my door or bang it on the desk, I would probably shit my pants. They say if you can’t buy the same thing twice, you can’t afford it. Maybe I’m good with my $600 King Seiko.
Obsession
“Find what you love and let it kill you”
There are few things I like more than watches. Photography is one of them, though. If someone would ask me to choose between watches and photography, the choice is very simple. I can spend countless days checking photobooks, Flickr, 500px, and portfolio sites. Just after the premiere of Jason’s video, I found a great photographer, Jay Gullion, through Instagram’s Explore page. I became obsessed with his photos and his work. I noticed a few Rolexes on his page, and I saw he had done Project Polaris alongside one other great photographer Alex Strohl. I Googled Gullion and there was one article that caught my eye: “The Watch I Wore Most In 2019, by Members of the HODINKEE Team.” There, he stated:
“My love for my birth year 5513 has never waned, and I figured this modern Sub could be the same. Since January, I have worn it while shooting underwater off Catalina Island, hanging out of the side of a Defender on the coast of Portugal, surfing with my wife in Costa Rica, snowshoeing at 10,000 feet in Italy, and in -40 degree temperatures in a diamond mine in the Arctic Circle, just to name a few places. Point being: I have never worried about it for a moment.”
That really made me think. Not only because of the watch but because of all the epicness that this paragraph contains and putting the light on some things I always wanted to do but were lost along the way.
Changing the Perspective
“Sometimes a change of perspective is all it takes to see the light.”
The idea of owning a vintage Tudor was still in the back of my mind. But for someone who had two bank loans, I could forget spending that kind of money. I decided that I don’t need a new watch. All I need is this King Turtle and all I need is to pack it with memories. Less than a month after that day in Cyprus, my lovely wife and I were waiting for a flight at the small Naxos’s airport when a French man sat next to me. On his wrist was a Rolex Submariner. I couldn’t tell the reference, but I think it was a 16610. It was the most beautiful watch I have ever seen. In my mind, nothing could compare to that beaten-up Rolex.
That was all it took to push me to start looking at alternatives to the 9401 I had coveted. I even thought about buying a Steinhart (You can hate me, but I think that they make awesome watches with solid movements for a reasonable price). Then one friend told me, “Stop joking around. Save up and buy Black Bay 58 or a Pelagos. You won’t be sorry.”
The Trip
“Exploration extracts us from the barrage of daily life. It strips the noise away and reduces us to something more basic.”
So here it is: I made the decision to buy Tudor Black Bay 58 in blue. Why not black? Because I don’t like gilt accents. Why not Pelagos? Because I didn’t want to have a date. After my decision to buy it, I waited for more than 4 months before I actually ordered the watch—I wanted to be sure. When I finally went to the AD, I was worried: I had heard stories that it would take up to one year. But my AD assured me it would be three months, tops. I calculated that it would arrive after an upcoming trip to Andalucia. I’d have one more great adventure with my King Turtle.
And then ‘The Call’ came, one week before the trip.
“Will you still take it to Spain?” – asked my wife, afraid of pickpockets.
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
It survived landing in Spain, even though we almost didn’t.
On the third day God created…a gigantic scratch on my clasp. Actually, it wasn’t God, it was one of the metal buttons on my cargo shorts. Even though I had bought the BB58 to make memories with it and expected that would involve a few scratches, I didn’t expect one so soon. Then I realized that as soon as you accept that a watch will be scratched, you can have a lot more fun with it.
During our 10 or so days in Spain, it did well. I knocked it a few times while getting or putting our bags in overhead compartments in trains and airplanes, but it didn’t get any additional scratches. It survived landing in Spain even though we almost didn’t because we flew through a high turbulence area. I didn’t feel afraid for a second that someone would try to nab it, even though there were times in a crowd when my wife would touch my wrist to check if it was there. Even though it screams, “Look at me, I’m a blue watch!,” it didn’t draw unwanted attention; you really need to be into watches to eyeball a BB58 from afar.
During our time in Spain, the Black Bay was on my wrist as we hiked around Puente Nuevo in Ronda, when we explored the Alcazaba in Málaga, and as I stood below arch pillars in the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba. It was with me while I was looking for final preparations for bullfighting in Seville. And it was there in the Alcázar of Seville, where Sand Snakes killed Prince Doran Martell in Game of Thrones and where I ignored that bit of trivia and snapped a photo of a little duckling.
At the end of our trip, I was standing at the window and watching the port of Málaga in the evening. Listening to the seagulls and traffic outside, I glanced at my watch. The next day at that time, I would be in my own bed. Could I have done this trip with my King Turtle, which I brought as my backup watch? Or even without a watch? Easily. Honestly, it’s not the watch that made this trip special, but the trip that has made this watch special.
The Tudor Black Bay 58 has been on my wrist ever since. (I only swap watches to make pictures for Instagram). It wears very well. Sometimes I need to check is it still on my wrist, because it feels so light. Sometimes I wish I could easily adjust the clasp when it gets hot and my wrist swells. My only real regret, though, is that I didn’t buy it sooner.
Will I ever photograph Land Rover Defenders of Maneybhanjang in West Bengal with the Himalayas as the backdrop? Will I ever participate in dog sled race in Fjällräven kit, wearing this watch? I have no idea. Time will tell. One thing is certain: I will enjoy this watch. I have started creating memories with this one and can’t wait to make even more of them. Maybe my grail watch will be on my wrist someday. Or maybe I found it and it’s already on my wrist.
Check out Clay Foster’s hands-on review of the Tudor Black Bay 58 Blue.