Hello, Dear Reader, and welcome to a somewhat brief tale about how an anxious Northeastern-raised boy found solace, and serenity, through a tenuous tether to a watch. I recently returned from a trip to the Gulf Coast. As you are reading this article, and therefore likely to be a watch enthusiast, I assume you can empathize with the inordinate amount of time I spent, pre-trip, determining which watches would join me on this escape from the cage of modern work life.
Given I’d be coastal, and spending time in the water, sport watches were necessary. First criterion set, but a fairly useless one, given that most of my collection is comprised of sports watches. So, then, on to developing secondary, and tertiary, evaluators to bring me to a well-reasoned logical conclusion to a self-imposed, and nonessential, conundrum.
Something whose colorway would fit the bright hues of my destination? Why yes, I’ll take one of those – step on up, Coral Yellow Nodus Avalon II, whose on-the-fly adjustable clasp is of added merit here. Next up, something a little dressier to bridge the gap from beach to a restaurant whose dress code most certainly doesn’t require shoes, let alone a watch, let alone a nice one. Hop into the watch roll, Navy Astor+Banks Fortitude! Lastly, something whose colorway and style is versatile, because one-watch versatility is a must when one brings three watches on a five day trip. Join the club, Zodiac Super Sea Wolf 53! All aboard!
Wait, what could this straggler be? Why, it’s a Casio GBX-100, because one must know the ebb and flow of the tides, and the rise and set of our dear Sun in these strange lands that I’ve visited before. (Actually, it is a highly useful device for this trip, but won’t come in handy because I’m in the minority of watch enthusiasts who find most G’s to be uncomfortable). Well, my unwieldy but practical friend, you arrived just in the nick of time. And by arrived, I mean that I continued to overthink all of this, and before heading out the door, grabbed the GBX like the last piece of cake: quickly, aggressively, and without much thought for how it would make me feel in the coming days.
By now, you must be lamenting the paragraphs to come in which I describe my in-trip watch choices, in similarly excruciating detail the prior passages. Alas, dear reader, fret not! For only one watch from amongst this venerable triumvirate—and its awkward bodyguard—got any real wrist time: the Zodiac Super Sea Wolf 53.
What is the catalyst for this unexpected twist? Is the mighty Zodiac, a tool borne from the halcyon days of modern aquatic adventure, the supreme being out of these three beautifully made, lovely horological wonders? Well, no. It is a great watch, elegant and capable of surviving all of my beach lounging and day drinking. The Super Sea Wolf doesn’t, though, have the Nodus clasp’s functionality, its water resistance is worse than the Avalon II’s and tied with the Fortitude’s, and its lume is dimmer and fades quicker than that of its travel companions.
Why, then, did I choose to neglect the Avalon II and the Fortitude? For no reasons related to their capability, or my love for them. These are two of my favorite watches, and I wouldn’t argue if you told me either one is better than the Zodiac. Here’s the real factor that determined my choice: after arriving at our destination and changing into appropriate sub-tropical clothing (seriously, what lunacy keeps us from moving here, away from whatever bastard season governs January to April in the Northeast?), I put on the Zodiac, and then—here’s the kicker—I stopped thinking about watches.
Catch your breath, and bear with me. Did I look down from time to time, and notice how the parchment-like dial of the Super Sea Wolf beautifully picked up the hue of the quartz sand? Yes, and that isn’t hyperbole, it really does. Did I catch the glint of the applied gold-tone indices and consider how they are reminiscent of late-evening sunlight speckling the ocean? Absolutely, even though they aren’t really—I’d just had a few frozen margaritas too many by that time.
Despite these moments of watch awareness, I didn’t think much about the watch on my wrist, or which one I would wear the next day, because I was surrounded by endless natural beauty, with the love of my life, removed from the siren’s calls of email and Teams chats. I was in my own paradise, wearing a watch that let me have brief moments of watch nerd joy without succumbing to distractions and anxiety about which watch was right for what moment. For that time, I could just be, and while the Zodiac Super Sea Wolf 53 isn’t the main reason for that, it was certainly a welcome enabler.
I leave you with a duality, which may or not be permissible in this oft-dichotomous world of watches. The process of choosing which watches to travel with, at least in my experience, is a way to relish and amp up one’s sense of aufbruchstimmung, the joy found in anticipating or planning for travel. The decisions that result from that process, though, are of less relevance on a trip whose purpose is to engage with the various stimuli for which I traveled to that destination. For me, the best watch to travel with is the one that most seamlessly integrates into the experience. Sometimes that has something to do with the watch—functions, wearability, style—but oftentimes, it is just about what gets on the wrist first.