The Grey Nato - Ep 33 - The Perfect Watch Trio

Published on Tue, 02 May 2017 05:41:01 -0400

Synopsis

The hosts discuss their ideal three watch collections under different budget constraints - $10,000 and $1,000. They share their philosophies on balancing different watch types like divers, GMTs, chronographs, and multifunction watches to create a versatile collection covering various needs. They also briefly mention an engrossing documentary film about cave diving called "Diving into the Unknown" and recommend an article highlighting affordable quality gear for outdoor activities like camping and hiking.

Transcript

Speaker
Unknown Hey, how's it going? Good. How are you? Yeah, not too bad. Like I feel like I can, uh, I can hear your tan from here.
Unknown Well, it's more like a sunburn.
Unknown St. Bart's was good.
Unknown St. Bart's was, uh, it was excellent. It was better than expected. Some great diving and, uh, best of all, I didn't lose the watch.
Unknown Oh yeah. Perfect. Perfect. All right. Well, we got a pretty packed show tonight. You want to get to it? Let's do it. Okay, so we're back with episode 33 this week, and it's going to be a pretty good show. I'm excited about it. The notes look really good, and we actually get to start from a really high point, which is our Unimatic giveaway has a winner. So, Jason, take it away.
Unknown Yeah, we, you know, a couple shows ago, we announced that we were giving away a Unimatic Modelo Due, which is the long sold out field watch from that brand that seems to get a lot of positive feedback when we post it on Instagram. So we held this contest and we got a lot of great entries. There were close to 300 folks that commented on Instagram and tagged people and used the hashtag. So thanks a lot for everybody for responding and participating. But we could only pick one winner and that is John Shores. J-O-N-S-H-O-R-E-S. John Shores on Instagram. Hey, congrats. Yeah, congrats, John. John's a watch guy, lives out in California. Judging from his feed, it looks like he gets out and has a good time. I'm sure he'll be excited to get a pretty cool watch. So John, we will be in touch to get your address so we can ship this watch out to you. Thanks again to everyone who commented. We've got a lot more giveaways coming up this year. We're really excited about some of the stuff that's coming just around the corner, aren't we?
Unknown Oh yeah, I think it's going to be great. We're going to try and line up as many giveaways as possible and even branch away from watches. But we're still we're still going to stick to basically trying to give away a watch as often as possible, and accessories and things like that. So we have some some stuff lined up, we don't want to be too close together. But we also don't want people to wait so much. So in the next couple months, we're definitely going to ramp up the giveaways and try and maybe even find some cool stuff, kind of summer stuff and We hope that'll kind of fall in line with some announcements we have for funding the show coming forward. It should all work together in kind of a fun way. I'm excited about it, and yeah, I'm thrilled for John and with the Unimatic giveaway. So thanks very much for Unimatic for being cool with us giving the watch away, and congrats to John. So what's new? Let's start with some new business. How are things, you know, since St. Bart's for you?
Unknown Well, you know, I just got back on Sunday and it's, uh, what is it now? It's a Thursday night. So I'm just kind of settled in. My sunburn is turning into kind of appealing, kind of unsightly. Actually, it's just my hands that got sunburned. You know, when you're in a wetsuit for three days, all that's exposed is kind of your head and your hands. And so, um, my hands are red and the rest of me is still white, but, uh, it was great. You know, St. Bart's, uh, you know, I've dived a fair amount in the Caribbean and, and St. Bart's has never, come up in a list of places that people mention when they talk about diving in the Caribbean. And I kind of had lower expectations. I went as a guest of Richard Mille, who hosts and sponsors this big sailing competition down there every April. And that's kind of the primary reason why they bring journalists down. And I was invited to take one of their watches diving, as I mentioned in the last show. You know, I figured, OK, it's Caribbean diving. It's got to be decent. But it was fantastic. For one thing, the topography there is pretty neat. It's a lot of kind of pinnacles and seamounts. It's very rocky. Oh, neat. Not anything too terribly deep. So, you know, you get good long bottom time and good light penetration. And, you know, when you're swimming around down there, it's like you're swimming through these kind of labyrinths or these canyons. And the whole island is surrounded by a marine reserve, so it's very well The ecosystem is well protected and we just saw all kinds of sea life. I mean, there were reef sharks and nurse sharks and lots of turtles and huge lobsters and tarpon and barracudas and just a really, like I said, a really healthy ecosystem. To me, what struck me was when you dive in a place like that is you really get a sense of how an ecosystem can can be if it's left sort of unmolested. And we did three days of diving and then I was supposed to go sailing on the last day there and turns out there was no wind on that day. So I, um, I didn't go out with the, with the crew, but, um, you know, I, it was fine. I mean, after three days of diving, I was ready for kind of a day of just hanging out and having a drink by the pool and, um, looking at the, at the blue ocean there. So all in all a great time. Of course, I got to direct dive with the, uh, the RM032 which is Richard Mille's kind of mid-range diving watch if that can even be considered a term with Richard Mille since it's a $145,000 watch. Yeah, crazy. They make a rose gold version that's like $195,000 but you know the watch itself I would never sell anyone on the fact that it's a stellar kind of tool diver or anything you know it doesn't have the most legible dial or anything like that. But to me, it was kind of just the novelty and the, you know, the once in a lifetime experience of diving with a watch of that kind of high end nature. And, you know, the watch itself, it's one of those watches that you just, you continually kind of look at again and again and look closer and you discover these details about it. Like I didn't realize it's an annual calendar. I mean, it has this tiny little month window on the dial that I saw uh, the day that I was, the first day I was there and I got it, I was like, what is this little tiny window? And you can barely read the number in it. And then I realized it's the, it's the month. Um, so it's a, it's a center minutes, sweep hand chronograph. That's a flyback and it's an annual calendar. And then the bezel has kind of a locking mechanism where you just push on the two opposing sides or two little buttons that I guess what you'd be like 12 and 30 or zero and 30 on the bezel. And you just kind of gently push those down and it unlocks the bezel so you can turn it. And then when you kind of lock the crown, which is sort of like the old JLC Master Compressor Series crowns, it actually locks the two push pieces as well, so you can't accidentally operate the chronograph underwater. You know, it's just a lot of tech in that watch, and the case is well-sculpted and whatever, but it's a beast. I mean, it's 50 millimeters across. I don't know the height, but it just sits really high on the wrist. The crown kind of protrudes into the back of your hand. So, you know, it has its flaws certainly, but, uh, you know, fun to dive with. And, and again, just, uh, you know, if you ever are looking for a new place to dive in the Caribbean and can afford it, uh, I would say St. Bart's is worth putting on the list.
Unknown Yeah. Sounds amazing.
Unknown Yeah. And, uh, well, I mean, speaking of diving, you you're, uh, as, as people are listening to this, you're going to be, uh, somewhere else, uh, heading steaming towards a dive trip yourself. Why don't you tell us about that?
Unknown You can just imagine me with the wind in my hair and the sun on my back and the shark circling below me. Like we mentioned at the start of episode 32, I'm off as a kind of an invited member of an expedition with Oris Watches called the Clipperton Expedition. So going there to cover for a blog to watch.com and for the Grenado and such. I'm mostly just packing and kind of planning for that. It's actually been a lot more planning than I ever would have assumed naively. It's very similar to the sort of kind of gear list prepping scenario I had with Baker. Only with Baker, I had a long, long time to kind of acclimate myself to the process. And with this, I've had a couple months, but I really only got into all of the really required bits, like a couple of weeks ago. Oh, sure. So that's keeping me plenty busy. And, uh, I like, I love, I love the, uh, kind of forced minimalism of packing to certain restrictions, whether it's the size of the bag or the weight of the bag or whatever, which is kind of fun. Yeah. And thanks to that new Sony a6500 I mentioned last episode, uh, I can actually take quite a lot of camera power without it taking up a ton of space. Which is nice. So I'll be, you know, kind of down to a big duffel for all the dive gear and enough t-shirts and shorts to last me the trip, as well as kind of a backpack with, uh, probably my rags and camera gear. Yeah. Yeah. That sort of thing. So I'm, I'm, I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be great. Uh, yeah, just, uh, you know, get back into a lot of diving. It's been a little while since I've been underwater and just got my EANX or Nitrox certification all sorted out. So. ready for, uh, ready for all that and to, uh, and to get underwater. And I think it'll be unlike any diving I've ever done.
Unknown Oh, I I'm so jealous. I think it's going to be, it's going to be incredible. Tell, tell us, uh, or tell me, I guess, uh, for anybody who else doesn't know, um, where exactly is Clipperton? Where are you headed exactly?
Unknown Uh, Clipperton. So if you look at the base of the Baja Peninsula, if you kind of just draw a line South from Cabo San Lucas, it's, um, I think it's about 880 miles. Oh, okay. Almost straight down. Sure.
Unknown Kind of off the west coast of South America then, or?
Unknown Yeah, exactly. It's 80 hours by boat to the Clipperton Atoll. Oh, yeah. And then it's a few days of diving on Clipperton. And then from Clipperton, we turn around and head back towards Cabo San Lucas, but kind of westward a little bit to catch Socorro, which is a fairly famous, you know, remote diving location. And then we'll have a couple days on Socorro and then from there we go back to Mexico. Oh, incredible. Wow. Yeah. It's going to be something else. Yeah.
Unknown I mean, so, you know, we've got something else planned for episode 34, but episode 35, I'm sure we'll have a ton to talk about. And, uh, I'm sure your Instagram will be crowded with really cool stuff, uh, right around that time.
Unknown It's hard to say what the Instagram situation will be because there will be a network connection on the boat, but it won't be a good one. Likely. Why would it be good? Yeah. Right. So I'll try and get some images up, but a lot of it will have to be kind of post-grammed. Oh, yeah. From, uh, from when I return home. And then, yeah, so we have this episode will come up. I'll already be a couple of days into the trip. And then the episode, uh, two weeks from now. So EP 34 will be a Q and A episode. It's a really good one. It's a bunch of questions we've been saving that, uh, we've just been kind of working through slowly to make sure we get some really solid kind of well-researched answers. But that's more just to a technical limitation of I'm gone for more than two weeks flat out with really no ability to do the Skype call that you and I do to facilitate these conversations. Yeah. So if you really hate the Q&A episodes, then you get a break. Otherwise, I think it's going to be a great episode. And then we'll come back fresh with a bunch of great stories for episode 35. Cool.
Unknown And you'll certainly have your sea legs by the end of that trip. Wow.
Unknown Yeah, that or I will have been barfing for two weeks. One or the other, right? I've done boats a bunch, nothing for this length of time really, but I don't think I'll get seasick, but certainly we'll find out and it's something I'll deal with when it happens. Yeah, right. Or you'll just lose a lot of weight. Yeah, that could be that too. I'm sure I'll be well fed, so hopefully we can equal the in and out. Right. And yeah, and then next up on the list here, I do want to thank everybody who wrote in with their suggestions for sub $250 watches. So that was last episode, episode 32. It was a very successful episode and I thought it was a great topic and we had a really fun time kind of developing what we wanted to say and what watches would be on the list and that sort of thing. And the response has been excellent. We've received a ton of emails. So when I have the time, I am going to collect those into a list. and kind of assign either email names or Instagram handles or whatever and we'll kind of break down the list further and see if there's any like real gems that we missed because there's a couple in the in the emails that I got that were definitely definitely worthy of being on anyone's list for sub 250 watches. So thanks everyone who wrote that in and if you've got one in the back of your mind that you figure we missed then by all means send us an email thegreatnadoatgmail.com. Nice yeah that was a fun one. And then lastly, I actually have a listener request. So if you're listening to this, I assume you have some interest in like gear and bags and that sort of thing. Obviously we spoke a lot about that sort of topic on the show over the last year and a half. And, uh, and, and so with bags, I'm actually looking for something and I haven't quite found it or, or I'm not sure if I found it, but, uh, I'm for walking around Vancouver right now. You know, I want to carry the camera as much as possible along with maybe say a rain jacket or a small umbrella. And I was looking for kind of a small, like a really small shoulder bag or even, um, like a hip pack, a fanny pack, but one you would wear across your back. They're just a slightly different, I think you know what I mean. And, uh, and so, yeah, it's, we're talking maybe some food, bottle of water, a rolled up, uh, rain jacket or something like that. It's just nice for this time of year in Vancouver, where it can be really nice when you leave your house and raining by the time you come home. Yeah. So I'm looking at Topo Designs has one that I rather like the look of, which is the Quick Pack. And it comes in a few different colors. And it kind of looks like a little camera case and then has a shoulder strap. So it's like a little tiny briefcase sort of thing. Yeah. And it's 13 by 7 by 4, which is a nice size. And then Tom Bin, which is, I believe, like a Seattle based, I think it's around Seattle. um bag manufacturer that makes these very high grade very well reviewed bags yeah since the early 70s they make something that's actually a combination of a shoulder bag and a packing cube which is nice so it's it's just ultralight dyneema uh uh you know nylon and it has kind of one central pocket and a side pocket it's it's tantamount to a purse in some what in some metrics yeah and uh and then if you you know take the the straps off it, it would work as a packing cube for some stuff in a bag. Yeah. And it's half the price of the Toppo. It doesn't have the same kind of level of protection that the Toppo provides. Right. But I think both look pretty good. So if you're listening to this and you have some experience carrying a few small items, even something maybe up to the size of a small iPad for your day in, day out sort of options, maybe just send me a note if you wouldn't mind, TheGreatNativeGmail.com. Uh, you know, I'm not looking to spend a ton of money, but I also, you know, would like something that lasts, which could be reasonably water resistant, especially if I apply to DWR coating. And yeah, just something simple and lightweight, basically that could carry a couple things. I walk around Vancouver a lot. And, uh, like even today, it was kind of junkie in the morning when I left home. And then by the time I came home, it was 10 degrees warmer Celsius. And quite sunny. So I left my sunglasses at home, but I, you know, remembered a big sweater and a rain jacket and, and that sort of thing. So, and any tips are appreciated and, uh, and yeah, thanks very much in, uh, in advance.
Unknown Yeah. And I'll just throw one recommendation in from a long time ago. I remember back in the eighties or nineties, uh, when I was a younger man, um, the kind of a really popular bag was made by Mountain Smith. It was called, uh, I think they just called it like the day pack. And it's still on their website, actually, I'm looking at it now. It was kind of a lumbar pack, but it had a pretty nice kind of over the shoulder, so kind of wear it like a sling, or you could wear it as a lumbar pack. And I think at that time, lumbar packs were kind of getting to be all the rage and kind of a nice alternative to like a small backpack. And lo and behold, they still have it on their website. And it kind of reminds me of what you're talking about. It had some kind of daisy chain webbing on the outside, some lashing spots and multiple pockets.
Silence/Break Yeah, cool.
Unknown Kind of a cool size, so I'll throw that one on the list first, but yeah, I'd love to hear listener suggestions.
Unknown Yeah, super. Well, we'll see what we come up with, and I'll let everyone know what I end up picking to kind of lug some stuff around. I used to carry one of those Filson 256 briefcases. Oh, yeah. And beautifully made, but heavy. Yeah. I mean, with nothing in it, it's kind of heavy. Yeah, yeah. And that material would pick up any dye from pants. Yes, yes. You know, it was kind of big. You could fit a laptop in it if you wanted to. So it's bigger than I really want to carry it at this point. But it used to easily carry a bunch of stuff in it. And then you'd put the shoulder strap on and, you know, they're kind of rustic. So I wouldn't say they're necessarily the most comfortable. So I would end up often just opting to carry it by the handle. At which point I might as well just, I don't know, could have had anything. A tote bag would have been just as handy and could have been kind of rolled up and even tucked into a pocket or a belt loop or something. Back to bags. Yeah, we're back on bags. That's probably enough time spent on a bag I haven't even picked yet. So you want to move on to our main topic?
Unknown Yeah, let's do that. I think it's a good one this week. We've got, we're kind of basing it off of a question that a listener wrote in back in, I guess it was back in August actually of last year. His name was Matt and Matt wrote in and kind of asked us what our ideal three watch collection would be, assuming we had, you know, $10,000 or less to spend. And we liked the question. We'd actually thought about incorporating it into the Q&A episode, but it's kind of blossomed into a full episode. So here we are. I mean, we're kind of talking about the perfect three watch collection for $10K or less. In many cases, I guess it could be a lot less than $10K. What do you think? I mean, what would be, you know, before we get into specific watches, what sort of blend would you look for in a three watch collection?
Unknown So yeah, I mean, being that I've been a car nerd for a while and you run across other car nerds and kind of the fast discussion where you kind of cut to the, kind of like asking somebody their desert island playlist is, you know, what's your perfect three car garage or three cars for X amount of money or whatever. And it kind of gives you an idea of the philosophy somebody uses to approach cars or maybe a mix CD or whatever.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown And I think I come to the same position with watches. And the funny thing is, is with watches, and in many ways with cars, is that $10,000 is kind of a fun limit because otherwise you could really land anywhere. Yeah. Because if you said you had to spend $100,000, the market is such that we could find three great watches. Sure. Yeah. For a hundred grand. Would either of us be that comfortable wearing them? Maybe. Maybe if it wasn't our hundred grand, I don't know. I think we both have trouble getting past that. 10 puts you kind of in the meaty, meaty zone of an amount of money that a watch enthusiast might one day aspire to spend. Yeah. But not so much that you're talking about purely super rich guy sort of concept of, you know, what's your three dream watches. Yeah. Richard Mille. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And there's, there's a bit of a philosophy to blending it. So I think for me, it would be probably something like a diver Some sort of a multifunction like a true what I would consider a true tool watch the wagon of watches if you will and then a GMT and then of course within those three you could blend any of them and make a space for something else Yeah, which which makes this a fun exercise, but it also makes it almost a Moving target, you know, how do you how would you approach this? Like do you have is there three kind of clear-cut? You know segmented like in an ice cube tray watches that you would you would lean towards or would it end up being kind of two divers and something else?
Unknown Well, it's funny. I was, uh, when I've been thinking about this, I've been thinking it's almost easier for me to come up with a two watch collection than a three watch collection. I'm not sure why that is, but I think I can kind of combine categories, um, into one watch more readily than I can sort of come up with three distinct areas. And like, like you said, you can, you can blend a couple, especially when you get into multifunction watches. Like if you say, one of them is going to be a quote unquote beater or tool watch that you wear cutting the grass or traveling to sketchy parts of the world. Yeah. Um, that can also be your, your multifunction or your, your dive watch. But I think for me, the absolute non-negotiable watch in the collection has to be a dive watch. And, um, I almost feel like if you're going with a three watch collection, you can kind of go, Kind of one or one of two ways you can sort of do a two to one ratio where you've got sort of two, you know, medium to low range watches and kind of one, one high range watch and whether that is your high range or sort of high end diver, you know, like an $8,000 Submariner and then, you know, your other 2000 is divided between your, you know, multifunction and your, you know, what dress watch or something like that. But, or you can go with, you know, two sort of mid range watches and then kind of leave a little bit at the end for like a Seiko diver. Yeah. But for me, there has to be a dive watch in the mix. And I feel like, although I wouldn't call myself a pure sort of chronograph nerd, there are a lot of guys that really love chronographs. And for me, I don't necessarily think that I love chronographs. I like certain chronographs. And I almost feel like I would either need a chronograph or some sort of a complication. And for me, that complication could be even be like a GMT, which fits also nicely into kind of another bucket in this three watch versatile listing. Now, of course you could conceivably combine all three and get a dive chronograph with a GMT. And I'm not sure off the top of my head which watch that would be, but there are plenty of like, not plenty, but there are several diver GMTs and there are also plenty of chronograph GMTs. So this blending is where it gets a little murky, but for me, I almost come down as sort of dive watch, travel watch slash GMT watch, and then some sort of a... I kind of want to echo what you're saying about a multifunction. That's sort of a... I'm not a G-Shock guy, but, you know, the one that I think you and I have tossed back and forth a lot is the aerospace. A watch like that or an Aqualand or something.
Unknown Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think it's funny because you've got diver as non-negotiable for me. And in my sense, if I was really down to three watches, I feel like I would naturally fall with one of them being a diver.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown But I don't necessarily think it would have to be because it, when I'm diving, I would have a computer. Yeah. So as long as the watch is like a hundred meter water resistant, like almost all of my little, um, hypothetical lists have my Explorer 2 on them.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown And I've had, uh, let me see two separate listeners of the Grenado send me pictures of them diving with the same watch as 16-750. Yeah. And so it's a solid crown and it's good to a hundred meters and you could easily get it verified if you're worried about it. And so, I mean, I really liked the functionality of the dive bezel. Yeah. And I think if we suddenly were talking about one watch. Yeah. Or even, yeah, like you said, two, then one of them, if I'm down to one or two, one has to be a diver because I start to lose the overlap ability. Yeah. But if I'm going to have something like an Aerospace or a Victorinox, you know, with the similar movement or a G-Shock. or a Protrek or something like that in the quiver, then I don't need the elapsed time ability because I could technically run that via the multifunction piece. For me, the non-negotiable is GMT, and I actually don't know why. I mean, today I was wearing my Eterna, which is a great dive watch. It's the 1973 Super Contiki LE. Great watch. It's the largest watch I own, but it's super comfortable, which you should really be commended for. And I wear it on a green NATO. It has a great kind of military aesthetic that ties into kind of the roots of that watch design with actual military use. And I laugh because at least two or three times in the day, I never look at the date, but I did look at, go to check a second time zone, like specifically to do the reference off of UTC. So whether that's, you know, it was UTC plus two for a friend in Eastern Europe, Or, or, you know, some other calculation I was trying to make, I think through Asia where I'm a little bit rustier with the plus minus.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown Yeah. And I just, for, I don't really know why, but I do like, cause I don't travel, I travel some, not that much. Yeah. And, uh, I just really love having the GMT it's, uh, and I don't really necessarily care how it's done. I prefer the Rolex, uh, uh, what I would call a flyer GMT versus the collar.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown But to be honest, I really like a 12-hour bezel. It's super handy. And the T2 feature on the Aerospace is great. I think that's kind of my favorite complication in a watch, because suddenly it's like having two watches.
Unknown So where do you keep the UTC or the GMT hands set on your Explorer II?
Unknown Do you keep it set to GMT? No, I keep all of them to Geneva.
Unknown You keep all of your GMT hands set to Geneva 10?
Unknown At plus one, yeah. Uh, so because I have, um, like David with a blog to watch, he's in Budapest, which is at plus one. So that gives me his time when I go to WhatsApp him, I can just glance and know he's not going to reply. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and then it's very easy to get back to GMT. I just remove one from the math.
Unknown Yeah. I, I mean, that's an interesting point because I have, you know, my in-laws, uh, live in Sri Lanka, which is, you know, it's actually there on a half an hour. So it's like 12 and a half hours ahead, um, which doesn't really fit with any watch that I could afford. I think there's like a Vacheron or something that accounts for those half hour offsets. But, um, I, you know, and I travel a fair amount, but I think, you know, the only GMT that I own, um, other than like a multifunction, the Aqualand or something where you can set a second time zone, um, is, is this Grand Seiko. Uh, it's the SBGM 021 with that cream dial. It's such a beautiful watch. It's a beautiful watch, but it's more of a dress watch. And when I always think, unless I'm going to like SIHH or Basel where, you know, I'm going to be kind of dressing up and it's more of an urban setting and kind of a, you know, nicer sort of city environment, that watch works fine. But the majority of the travel I do is kind of not off the map, but it's usually kind of a sweaty, rugged sort of place. It's usually diving somewhere or hiking or something where a GMT I think would come in handy to kind of track home time. And this Grand Seiko really doesn't work well for that. And other than that Doxa GMT that I had years ago that I think we talked about on the One That Got Away episode.
Unknown Yeah, 750T GMT.
Unknown Yeah, yeah. I don't know that I've ever had a really kind of proper rugged dive GMT or rugged GMT.
Unknown You had a GMT Master for a bit, a GMT Master 1.
Unknown yeah but vintage and yeah so it's not something i would necessarily wear i could see you having a 16 7 10 yeah same generation same kind of age as your sub or your your your most recent sub yeah and if i throw a watch like that in the mix um or the the the mythical fictional pelagos gmt would be oh yeah the ideal then it really opens up so many other options for those other two watches in the collection because then i could do You know, I've covered travel and complication and dive watch in one, and that leaves the other two open. Maybe I want like a kind of a spiffy dress watch. The Youngins. A Youngins, like a Max Bill or something that, you know, I don't wear that often, but I can kind of wear, you know, for nicer occasions. And then maybe that leaves something for, you know, I don't know, some vintage Speedmaster. I don't know what it is, but, um, so I do like your idea of, of the Explorer 2 or that, that type of watch. Um, but I've never, I think the reason I don't have a GMT, I think it would, it would be a great addition to this trio. But the reason that one's not non-negotiable to me is because I've never, other than that DOX, I've never really owned one that I've kind of latched onto as that, that great sort of all purpose travel rugged watch. And I know they're out there. I mean, there are plenty of those.
Unknown Yeah. That DOX is a great example of, yeah, like, so if that, so something like that DOX has huge amount of functionality, hyper wearable. I don't think it's going to get you into trouble in a shady or locale. Yeah. And just, I don't know. I really, I love that watch. I actually posted a photo of one of the Caribbean version today on Instagram. Yeah. You know, they had the last one that DOCSIS says that they have, they had at Basel. So I quickly grabbed it and snapped a wrist shot. I adore that watch. I love the blue and orange and that's the exact same color. color use that I hope we see on the hypothetical Pelagos GMT is keep that nice blue and just give us the same orange that they used on the Heritage Chrono. And you see some great stuff. And I mean, the other one that pops to mind, if you're really talking about getting as many features into one watch as quickly as possible, you're talking about Zyn. Yeah. Yes. Yep. You're right. Because that's going to get you the toughest, best wearing, most versatile in terms of uh the spread of watches and case sizes that they offer yeah so if you prefer something a little smaller or smaller for a sports watch you go with something like the uh the something in the 103 sized cases at around 41 millimeter and then you can go all the way up to like an easy m10 if we're talking about spending ten thousand dollars yeah And you look at something like an EZM10, which is going to leave you some cash left over, you know, that watches, uh, under $5,500. And that's a huge amount of watch. I mean, there's your example of the dive GMT chrono. Yeah. Right. Tons of features amazingly built 44 millimeters, titanium, tegimented case. Yeah. Obviously things like you got your Sapphire and not that heavy, you know, super wearable and an absolutely awesome every day, super like just a great tool watch of kind of the highest order in my mind. It's, it's right up there with the Pelagos. I had a chance to, a friend of mine has an easy M10 and I've worn one for a couple of days and it's, uh, they're flat out awesome watches. I mean, they're expensive for Zins. You're up into a kind of Bremont price point, you know, sub Rolex, but, uh, you know, pushing up on Omega and into a kind of the Bremont and entry-level IWC range, but a ton of features for that price. Great bezel, really cool integrated pushers. Yeah. And, uh, you know, just that'd be a killer option because you buy that watch and suddenly the other two, you'd still have, you know, the better part of $5,000 left over. Right. And the other two could be something really, uh, you know, rare or strange or something you may not get a lot of wear out of or, or whatever.
Unknown Yeah. I think, you know, when you look at these versatile watches that do straddle these categories, I think, uh, another one or another two to look at are, course the Tudor heritage chronograph which gives you a chronograph but it also gives you 100 meter water resistance and it gives you the 12-hour bezel and it's a watch that I love and would so be a really nice fit in this list because then you know you're you're getting you're kind of covering categories in one pretty affordable watch and then you can fill your other space with again something maybe more elegant maybe you know whatever a high-end diver or something The other one that comes to mind is the Bremont, the Boeing 247, which a friend of mine owns and I've long admired, which is, again, good, you know, rugged, 100 meter water-resistant watch with, you know, elapsed time bezel. It's got the GMT hand and it's a chronograph. And, you know, another sort of watch in that mold of a Zinn or the Tudor Heritage chronograph that kind of straddles categories. And I think when you're talking about three watches or you have a set budget, the more you can sort of pack in one watch, um, you know, it just, it kind of maximizes your, your spend, I guess.
Unknown Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, if, if we actually start to get into some specifics, I think for me, I would start by crossing off watches that I absolutely would want to have, regardless of the amount of money or slots available. Yeah. And for me, that's that eXp2 is probably right up there with my favorite. And then, uh, either a Seiko diver or something as good as a Seiko diver. Yeah. Which pretty much means you're either buying a Seiko diver or you're prepared to spend a larger portion of your budget on something that's as good as a Seiko diver. Yeah. Right. Because I mean, an SKX007 barely factors into the $10,000 budget. Right. But for me, like if you didn't want an SRP or an SKX, then I don't know, uh, I would almost like rethink the whole thing if, if one of those, if one of those two wasn't going to be in there.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown But, you know, depending on where you're priced out, I mean, I'm trying to think of street prices for the EXP2 are still under $5,000. One like mine, you know, where, you know, where ready condition. Right. And then I would say I could come in well under 10 grand by doing an EXP2, the aerospace and an SRP. Yeah. And that trio would never leave me wanting for any watch.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown No, that's, I think that's pretty close to almost the perfect trio.
Unknown And then if you wanted to spend a bit more, I would drop the SRP and go with a Tudor Heritage Chrono. But I know that in my mind, I'm technically breaking this rule because I would still have an SKX in a drawer somewhere.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown Yeah. Right. Right. And then I think you could also, I mean, depending on what you chose for the other two, but the price range of a used 16570 Explorer II isn't that different from a 14060M sub or even, well GMT Masters do jump up about 20%, but you could still fit either of those, so if you really didn't like the EXV-2 you could definitely go with a sub or a GMT Master and get a very similar overall wrist presence as far as the watch goes. For me it's the white dial and the GMT, so it's that very specific Yeah. Specific piece. And then I think a lot of people maybe don't want the aerospace or wouldn't like the aerospace. First off, I'd say you're dead wrong. It's a great watch. Yeah. I have a E56 062. I spoke about it on at least one past episode and 40 millimeter titanium, titanium bracelet with a spring class, awesomely functional, a feather light on wrist. It's great. It's a near perfect sports watch in my opinion. especially if you start to consider something in a more postmodern perspective than a normal, you know, three or four hand mechanical. Yeah. And then if you don't like the aerospace, which is of course fine, but you can get an aerospace for say under a thousand dollars. If you're willing to even just be patient, it's not even hunting because of watch recon, just be patient. Yeah. And they're a little bit more if you want to get, uh, the repetition minutes or an advantage or a Evo, those will spend more of the $10,000 budget, but none of them are like crazy expensive used, all well within the price point if you were planning on buying something like a Rolex with the 10. Yeah. And then if you really didn't like any of those, then I got to agree, I would either blend out the aerospace and throw in something like a Bremont Alt-1 ZT or the WT, a chronograph with a GMT or some additional time zone. Sure. Or maybe if depending on what you had in your price point, the AC diver with the GMT hand is also super cool and would be an amazingly wearable and usable watch. Yeah. And if you didn't go the Bremont route or you didn't have the budget to, you know, spend roughly half of the total on a Bremont, then it's Zinn is where you'd find the blend. So for me, it's, it's probably EXP2, Aerospace, and then something else. And in my mind, I really like if you're really going to edge out towards the top of that, price point i don't think i can actually do it but in my mind like an exp2 and aerospace and the tutor heritage corona was a pretty good blend but i think that puts us more like 11 and a half if i'm fair yeah yeah so yeah probably something like an exp2 the aerospace and an srp and then you got like money for straps or a dive trip or yeah exactly like that yeah how do you come down on um does vintage versus modern fit into your equation at all i didn't hear you mention really any vintage unless you consider you know an old aerospace a vintage watch but uh Yeah. I mean, the, the, the position, the third position with the aerospace could be taken up by a different watch. Like it just depends on whether you want that functionality. So, I mean, you could drop the aerospace or you could drop in this case, the SRP for a different diver. Yeah. Uh, you know, something like a skin diver, like my Sylvana, I really love, and it would be fun to have that blend. Yeah. Uh, but I think, uh, I think I was mostly sticking to things that I could be fairly assured of the price of. Yeah yeah. I mean an old speedy we all know the price of so if that's if that's the route or an old sub if that's the route you're going. Right. But I mean to when you start talking about vintage watches under a thousand dollars the price becomes fairly like fluid.
Silence/Break Oh yeah.
Unknown And I didn't want to I didn't want to bend it too far.
Unknown I'm thinking of your well I'm thinking of two things I'm thinking that that a lot of listeners or a lot of people will kind of A lot of people have an affection for vintage and they'll want that to be one of the three and I can kind of see that. I mean, I think one of my trios, my hypothetical trios that I had listed was an Explorer II or GMT Master, GMT Master II, a vintage, or actually basically any vintage Speedmaster since they've changed so little over the years. We talk about multifunction watches. I'm, as people probably know, I'm kind of a fan of the old citizen Aqualand analog digital piece, which scratches the dive watch itch. And it's a great sort of just beater to a watch, you know, $200 thing. With the Speedmaster, I get vintage. I get to kind of, you know, go crazy with my space geek self and get a chronograph. And then the, The Explorer 2 or the GMT is that kind of all-rounder, great travel watch. You know, you can dive and swim and hike and do whatever you want with it. I think that would be a pretty killer trio. You might come pretty close to, depending on the vintage of the Speedmaster, you might get pretty close to that $10,000, but I think an old Aqualand would probably save you because they're so cheap. But you could sub in like a Seiko SRP or something as well, or even an SKX.
Unknown Yeah, I mean I could drop my SRP from my 3 if the 3rd was an SRP and I could sub in like my Seiko World Timer, which would give me a dressier piece as well, which is nice and versatile if you wanted to dress up a little bit and you didn't want to wear the Aerospace with a suit. Or even the EXV2 for that matter, both of them don't really seem like something I would wear with a suit and tie. I think you could definitely go that route with the 6117-6400, but even those, it's hard to tell people what the price are. Yeah. And they're hard to find. So, I mean, that's, I guess, just a little bit more niche. I'm not sure. I love, I adore that watch. So, I mean, this is a tough question. Yeah. But in a purely hypothetical sense, I think, you know, yeah, I think we come down on... I think we're both kind of in the market for, you know, a flexible, good travel watch. Yeah. An all-arounder for chores and... sketchy trips and things like that. And then something else.
Unknown I think, um, so the other hypothetical trio I came up with was one that I think between the two of us, we could put together with watches we own. And what that is this Grand Seiko GMT that I have, um, a Rolex sub, you know, whether it's a reasonably priced 5513 or a 14060. Um, and then an aerospace again, you might creep close to the 10,000, but, uh, I think those three might be fairly ideal. But in the back of my mind, I think to myself, if you're going to go kind of water resistant, you know, if in my scenario, a dive watches is a necessity as much as I love a Rolex Submariner and in my own collection, that is the, the one piece that I will never part with for various reasons. If I were to kind of have a clean slate and recommend this trio to somebody, I would almost say, make your dive watch the, the lowest price of the kind of do that two to one ratio where the dive watch becomes the Seiko diver, the, the, the, not the mythical, the sort of, you know, um, the classic, you know, the, the, the watch that everybody has to have is that for sure, the 200 or $500, whatever it is, Seiko dive watch becomes the, the, the, the kind of the budget beater, you know, it's sort of the, the one that, uh, that you spend the least on, but, but you can kind of tuck in your, dop kit for a trip. Maybe you wear the the Grand Seiko GMT 80% of the time and then when it's time to hit the pool or or get on the dive boat for a day while you're on vacation you know you pull that Seiko diver out of your your bag and put it on and then you leave you leave the majority of your budget for you know the complication pieces whether it's a heritage chronograph or whether it's a Grand Seiko or you know something like that. So I kind of think like the Grand Seiko GMT a Rolex Sub and the Aerospace or Explore 2 GMT for kind of that rugged travel friendly watch, a Vintage Speedmaster or some sort of an 80s Vintage Speedmaster and then like something multifunction like an Aqualand or something. I think those would be kind of the route that I go.
Unknown I think that makes perfect sense. The other one that came to my mind is just trying to play with the numbers here. If I'm going to buy a diver, I might lean more towards something a little bit less common than a Seiko if that's going to be my third and kind of the cheapest option. Yeah. So, I mean, the other blend that would keep you way under, and I think this is where I would land, is something like the EXP-2. It's almost, for me, almost definitely the 16570, the Polar, and then something that gives me the functionality of the Aerospace, so a smaller multifunction, preferably like titanium that I don't have to worry about, sort of watch. And then, uh, as the last one, maybe something a little bit more, uh, special than a Seiko, uh, then something like an SRP or an SKX, I would go with something like the new Hallios C4 or I have a Tropic, also a Hallios that I absolutely love. And they feel very much the same sort of space in my mind as, as a Seiko, but they're, they're just a little bit more nerd, like, little bit more of a push towards the nerdy uh indie dive watch kind of direction and so i've seen various c4ths along its production i haven't seen the final one yet so it's a little silly to throw that on my list as something that's not actually out for another month or so yeah but that would certainly fall archetypically in right into the slot of that third watch of a not too big versatile cool looking and kind of uh nerd cred dive watch sure yeah no that makes sense
Unknown I think too, um, you know, as much as I can't kind of get away from having like a chronograph in the collection, but I don't, I'm not the kind of person that uses a chronograph as, you know, any sort of a tool. I don't really use it for, you know, the typical timing of steak or boiling eggs or something like that. So to me, something like the Max Bill, um, Jungens, which is, I don't know what they are, two, two grand or something like that. Chronoscope? Chronoscope. Yeah. It would be kind of a nice, affordable chronograph hit and then you know fill the other two with with kind of almost kind of look for the classics in each category so you get like the explorer 2 or a gmt master 2 to kind of fit that that genre and then if you want classic diver go with like a doxa sub 300 professionally or the one that i've got the yeah you know just bare bones like you know whichever one you get whether it's the orange black or silver dial just you know classic pure dive watch And then like the Max Bell chronograph. I think, I think you could do that under budget fairly easily. And I think, uh, I think you'd, it would be, it would be three very satisfying choices because you'd have this elegant kind of dressy chronograph that you can have that tactile play that you get with a chronograph and also a very dressy watch. You'd have this rugged, just pure dive watch that when you put it on, it says diver and you just begs to go in the water. And then you've got your kind of probably the watch you'd wear most often, which is that, uh, you know, Explorer 2 or GMT Master 2.
Unknown Yeah, for sure. I think that's a really versatile suggestion to go with something like the Doxa because that does, like the C4, it's very dive watch nerd... Yeah. ...sort of territory. Yeah. And is absolutely like a visually a big departure from the other two slots. Yeah. You know, it's tough to kind of come up with a mix, but I think we've roughly landed, maybe we're not at three watches a piece. Yeah. I think there'd be some variance if we, if you did this multiple times, but I think it's, it's funny. Not only like we, I think we land two out of three watches. We land very closely together. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then the third one's a bit of a wild card. And I think that comes down to what you said at the start there, where it's almost easier to pick two than three. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you can really cover the spread with two watches if you choose wisely. And the third one almost seems not inconsequential, but like, right. You know, you have to devote some of the budget to it. So it's that kind of thing. And then, uh, I think to wrap up, I thought it'd be kind of fun if we did the same thing, brainstorm style for say a thousand dollars. So, you know, I, I don't think my entire watch collection is 10 grand worth of watches. So I'm, you know, a little bit of an interloper with my, my weight of these decisions. I'm much more comfortable to say with something like if you had a thousand dollars that you're willing to save up or sell a watch that you have now, or a couple of watches and kind of clear path to not grail pieces necessarily, maybe some. I think you could find a grail at under a thousand dollars.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown But do the three watch collection for a thousand. Where does your mind fall for that?
Unknown Well, under a thousand, I mean, I think you'd have to, I think I'd really have to maximize something like with something you said earlier, which is, is go with an XKX. I think that has to be one of them. I think that as much as I like the SRP, As we talked about in our sub $250 episode, you know, if you can pick up an SKX for what, you know, what can you get them for these days? $180 or something like that, that leaves you with a fair amount left. Gosh, that's tough. You know, the other two categories, I mean, I think I might seek out something like, you know, maybe something along the lines of, of your, your vintage Seiko world timer, you know, something that gives you some, Functionality also gives maybe a little bit of a funky vintage vibe. Again, I think it's almost easier to pick two watches than three, especially when you get to sub-thousand dollars. Tough to find a chronograph that would fit into that mix.
Unknown It's tough to find GMT, too, at sub-one thousand. I mean, if you want to leave money for other watches.
Unknown Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I could easily pick three, easily pick, you know, you probably pick five dive watches for sub-thousand bucks and put five together. But, um, you know, so if that were the case, I'd go, you know, Seiko SRP and Aqualand and, you know, I don't know, an Orient or something like that. But then there's no versatility in that mix.
Unknown Yeah.
Unknown I don't know. I'm having trouble with the third one. What, where do you come up with a thousand bucks budget?
Unknown I joked around in my mind that, you know, I spent about $750 on my Aerospace. So I could do an Aerospace, an SKX, and then my third watch would be like some straps. Or I could do one of those Casio's that we spoke about in the last episode. I mean, a listener sent us an email. I don't have the name, I apologize, in front of me, but a listener sent us an email with the Casio F91, that kind of like the iconic little digital watch. It was $10. Oh, jeez. So, I mean, you can make your third watch where that's essentially cheating, I suppose, especially if I already have the aerospace, I'm not going to touch that Casio.
Unknown Well, we didn't even talk about G-Shocks. And I remember in that last episode, we, we talked about you brought up the, like the DW 5600, which you can get for, what did you say? $80 or something, right?
Unknown Yeah, about that. Yep.
Unknown So that's a ton to watch for that money. That's a, that, that fits into that multifunction kind of tool category. Um, throw that in with like the Seiko world timer and an SRP or something, and that might fit, that might, that might work out pretty well.
Unknown Yeah, no, I completely agree. That's roughly where I landed as well. With the aerospace taking up three quarters of the budget, I don't think that's a wise way of spending the money. I would rather go with an SRP. Yeah. At, you know, let's say that takes up 30% of your thousand dollars. Yeah. And then, yeah. And then I think something, uh, something vintage. So if you could get into a cool vintage diver that was in running condition, but maybe not ready to dive. Yeah. That would be fine. I, you know, I, my Sylvana cost around a thousand dollars. So maybe it would have to be something in lesser condition or from a different seller or something like that. But you know, you look on like retro watch guy, he has stuff under a thousand dollars. He has stuff under $500. So it's not impossible to say you could go SRP for kind of a modern watch. You're not going to worry about its mechanics and servicing it right away. Yeah. And then a vintage piece and you'd probably still have enough for that world timer. Yeah, right. Depending, again, on how the math comes out, if you buy a really minty one like mine, you're talking about $500 and you're very close to your thousand almost right away. But yeah, I think that there's a blend there for $1,000, just like there is for $10,000. But either way, it comes down to the fact that seemingly two watches is easier.
Unknown Yeah. And I can almost anticipate a listener question after this episode. Someone would say, If you had $1,000 to spend, would you spend it on three watches or would you buy one watch for $1,000? Exactly, yeah. What would you buy for $1,000?
Unknown Yeah, maybe we save that for another episode. Yeah, we'll do another hypothetical one in the future. If you have kind of a fun three-car garage, three watches for $10,000 sort of question that you want to pose or maybe something that's come up at the bar with your buddies, send it our way, thegreatnadoatgmail.com. I think that's probably as far as we need to go with this. Yeah, I think I almost already own the three watches, so I should probably just stop buying watches. Yeah, right. So this is the end of my tenure on the Grenado. I'll be seceding my position to somebody who still has watches to buy. But yeah, so you want to move on to final notes, I think, unless you got more to put in, more choices, more philosophies?
Unknown No, I think I'm pretty cooked on that topic. Let's close things out with some final notes.
Unknown Cool. Uh, yeah. So my first one is, uh, I think I've brought up Alex Roy on the show before, maybe it was probably some time ago, but he, uh, is a great auto journalist, uh, or auto writer, depending on your position, a fantastic auto writer by my, by my measure. And he writes for the drive.com right now he's written for other sources. And then famously, he has held multiple time records for crossing large portions of land. So most, most famously, he. drove uh i believe now i'm going to get it backwards i believe it was new york to la along the cannonball route established by um brock yates yeah and he drove that length of time in a modified uh bmw m5 in 31 hours 5 minutes which was a record that stood for a long time so keep keep that in your brain i want to say that's um 2800 miles maybe a little bit more and almost all of it Exceeding the speed limit. He waited until it all of the statute of limitations were up and then published a book about it and he really approaches like I I know Alex Roy because he was seemingly one of the only Not really stupid flashy rich guys that were involved with gumball 3000 way back when I first kind of heard about gumball when YouTube was kind of brand new. Yeah so for those who don't know gumball is a road rally that is done all over the world once a year. And over the years, it turned from something more like the cannonball run, the original cannonball run, and you can Google Brock Yates and kind of the history of these runs that weren't these big publicized events about fancy cars, but rather these kind of really crazy pursuits, not unlike climbing a mountain, but these really crazy pursuits to do something without necessarily a lot of fanfare is more bragging rights sort of thing. It has a really strange history because obviously most people in the older I get, the less I like the danger and the speeding and putting other people at risk and all those elements. But I still find myself like inexplicably fascinated by it. And take us up to today, Alex Roy has penned a series, they actually go back a little while now, but has penned a series for The Drive called Alex Roy's rules of professional speeding. And there's multiple segments and he basically starts out like, if you can't follow all of the rules presented in this, in this piece, then just drive the speed limit. Cause you're not prepared to do it correctly or safely or, or whatever. And so it's everything from, you know, rule number one is sign up for the longest racing school program you can afford. It's a two day minimum. Uh, stop reading here until you've done that. And if you've done that and you still want to drive fast on public roads, then keep reading. And then you can scroll down and it's basically like, by the time he gets the end of the list, you've spent 30 plus thousand dollars getting your car ready to drive at speed. Yeah. Yeah. And, and have learned how to use some advanced equipment as far as proper use and how to use radar jammers and detectors or laser jammers and radar detectors and things like that. And, you know, he, he says that he's never had a ticket in any of these long distance runs. Wow. By following these rules. But every time that he has gotten a ticket while driving, it's because he ignored one of these rules or all of these rules.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown It's a series. And really what I'm saying is if this topic sounds terrible to you, then just go on the drive and search Alex Roy and pick a different topic. His writing is simply fantastic. It's really funny. He does an amazing series that he started at Pebble Beach last year about a kind of tongue-in-cheek plan to steal a car from Pebble Beach. And I can't even like, it's so, I love, I enjoyed reading them so much that it's the kind of thing that I wish I was capable of writing and I'm just not. It's funny and it's really clever and the writing's razor sharp and he's really great in video and he's just a really funny personality and he now has the same record. A guy named Ed Boylan broke the Cannonball record with a slightly faster time, I want to say about two or three years ago. between New York and LA. But Roy now has the same record for an electric car. So he did the run in a Tesla. Oh, sure. And then he also did the same thing. And this is what I talked about in the past, I've now just remembered is he did the same thing with a friend in a Morgan three wheeler. Oh, yeah, I remember that. And it was this terrible, terrible experience they had doing this doing the cannonball run in a three wheeler. So look up Alex Roy, if you have any interest in in even the funny aspects of, you know, rules of professional speeding, then hit the show notes and, uh, take a look at that link. Uh, this is the sort of stuff that I really love reading and, and Alex Roy's the type of writing that I really wish I was capable of. So check it out. I'm a big fan.
Unknown I think for, for guys like us that, that do some writing, um, you know, for, for our work, uh, it's healthy and it's always refreshing and fun to read writers that, that are really good at their craft and it's inspiring, but it also, You know, it gives you something to aspire to and, you know, you can pick up some kind of, you're certainly not going to mimic their style, but I think, especially even if it's not, you know, you mentioned maybe if somebody's not interested in the rules of professional speeding, it's still healthy, I think, to read good writers in other topics that maybe you normally wouldn't read because I think it really gives you an insight into, you know, writing is not dead. I think in this day and age, you know, everything's 140 characters or you know, Instagram or something like that. I think it's nice to read good long form writing regularly and kind of keep that appreciation for it. So that's great.
Unknown Yeah. And at very least, I feel like it kind of emboldens my confidence in kind of swinging for the fences when I do write. Yeah. Taking a little bit more chances, not writing something I've written a hundred times. Yeah. And so I kind of gravitate to this sort of stuff, but it's great. So what have you got for your first one?
Unknown Yeah. So my first one is actually something I shared with you. Uh, I guess it was last week and you know, you and I kind of coming into this thick of diving season. We both got big, big plans for the summer here, starting with your Clipperton trip. And, um, this is a very different sort of diving adventure. Uh, it, it's a movie that we might've featured the trailer for it or talked about it at least earlier in the year or last year. Um, but now it's released on iTunes. It's a movie called diving into the unknown and it's a documentary film. uh, in largely in Finnish as in the language from Finland. And it's, it's a documentary about a team of Finnish divers, um, who are all kind of friends and have done extensive, you know, technical diving, cave diving. Um, and, and in 2014, they, they drove to this remote mountainous region in Norway, uh, where there's this, uh, fairly famous cave among, you know, caving circles. And they attempted to kind of link this cave that kind of connects between two openings miles apart. And during the course of this first expedition, two of the members of their team got trapped in the deepest parts of the cave and died. And that led to an attempted rescue mission where they brought in professional divers from Britain and from, I think, Norway. And they had difficulty. They couldn't get the bodies out. And the Norwegian authorities basically shut down this cave for diving, said, can't do it. It's too dangerous. And this movie kind of picks up at that point where these guys basically illegally plan to go back and get their friends' bodies out of this cave. And not only is it a really gripping story, but I think the footage, you know, which is all done in HD, in this incredible clear water, deep cave environment is, it's just an amazing movie to watch. I think, you know, for, for those of you that have listened to us talk about, uh, the, the article about, um, fetching the body out of that cave in South Africa, there was an article we talked about a while ago about, of course, shadow divers.
Unknown Yeah. The final dive of David Shaw.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown Yeah. Um, you know, these are, this is along those lines. I think it's another one of those kind of classic stories. The movie certainly is not without flaw. I think it gets a little confusing at times. They don't necessarily go into a lot of detail about certain aspects, but I think just kind of the overall story and then the footage itself is just really astounding. And you know, I know you enjoyed it too, but it's a, it's a, it's an amazing movie and that's on iTunes. So yeah, I, I loved it.
Unknown Yeah. I thought, You know, cave diving is something that's very rarely captured in a narrative sense. It's usually purely visual. Yeah. Uh, you know, some beautiful footage of a cave or somebody drags, uh, an amazing camera into some cave or some big cavern and shows it to you. The divers kind of floating in almost, uh, invisible water. And with this, it was very much more like about the people and their kind of perspective on going to get their friends that they left in this cave. And it's a little bit about the stress of diving. And I didn't like that they, at no point did they really talk to a non-diver. Yeah. So they didn't have any normal human being saying like, guys, this is crazy dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. It was all from the perspective of very advanced cave divers. Right. Who were seemingly calm all the time and were totally okay with the fact that they were, you know, this is like cave diving is easily one of the most dangerous sports, pastimes, activities in the world. Yeah. I would say arguably it's right up there with like wingsuit flying, proximity flying, whatever they call it now. Yeah. Uh, really advanced base jumping and, uh, and, and stuff like that. I mean, cave diving is gnarly. And then you add in the super cold water and they're very remote and then they weren't even allowed to be diving there. So if they had to call a helicopter, everybody was in trouble, which leads to bad decision-making typically. Yeah. It's a really insane story. The quality of the footage is so much better than I expected.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown And, uh, and then I, like I mentioned on our Slack conversation, I had no idea that they could like talk to each other.
Unknown Oh, right.
Unknown Yeah. So I'm not entirely sure what the metric was, but these guys were talking to each other. Like they, they needed subtitles for the audience. Right. But in the cave, they were having like small conversations, not like you and I are now, but you know, with maybe a vocabulary of 50 words.
Silence/Break Yeah.
Unknown They were able to have, discussions about what was happening around them. And maybe if the cave is super quiet, or maybe it has something to do with a rebreather. I should have looked into it before we started recording because, you know, I've tried to make audible noises through a regulator and it's useless.
Unknown Yeah, yeah. And I gathered that they were, they were breathing heliox as well. So it's a mixed gas environment, helium tends to distort your voice, turns you kind of into that sort of chipmunk mode, which if you've ever heard saturation commercial divers speaking through the intercom from their diving bell. It's, uh, it's almost impossible to, to understand what they're saying. Not because they're speaking unintelligibly. It's because the helium affects the voice so much. And you can hear these guys kind of munching through their regulator mouthpieces on, you know, breathing helium and yeah, they're, they're talking to each other and finish. So it's a, it's a very sort of meta sort of, you know, you're watching this and you're finished subtitles, but listening to this, high-pitched helium-induced underwater talking, which is, uh, it's really bizarre.
Unknown Yeah, it was a fascinating story and well worth whatever it was on, on iTunes, $10 or $12 or whatever I paid for it. And yeah, really cool. And, and it's also kind of nice because I think it's, um, it, they don't go into the tech of diving at all. So I think if you bring in a casual audience, like maybe if you're into diving, but you have a friend coming over, who's not so much into diving, I think that It pretty quickly just gets to the environment. Yeah. Rather than getting bogged down in like gas mixtures and stage bottles. Like you see them at some point with many bottles and then later with less. And they're not explaining the fact that they're staging the cave. Yeah. Right. Which is what they're doing by going in from two, two different sides. Yeah. And they never explained that you kind of have to glean that from having a limited understanding of cave diving and why they had two teams and they really only showed one. Yeah. If you're even remotely interested, I think it's really great and it's readily available in HD, which is the way to watch it, certainly. Yeah, definitely.
Unknown What's your number two?
Unknown Yeah, my second one is actually just a listicle from outside online. You know, we're now deep into April, so I think it's the time of year where people start to dig their maybe camping and hiking kit out of the closet or the storage space or whatever. start considering a few pieces that maybe need to be replaced from last year. And outside did a list of, let's see, 20 pieces of high quality gear for $20 or less. So some of it's kind of a no brainer, like they've got the, uh, the life straw on there, which we've spoken about before. And then, you know, there's some stuff I don't necessarily agree with, like field notes. Oh, yeah. Right. I don't know. Do you really need field? No, maybe you do. Maybe that's essential to you. It doesn't seem universal. Right. And then a nice pack towel. That's something that I could probably add. And then, you know, they got everything from a flask in here to this is kind of cool. It's a an inflatable solar lantern. The link to this will be in in the show notes. And then they've got collapsible coffee dripper, which is kind of like a pour over. But it you know, it's made of that kind of rubbery bowl material that can be collapsed. Yeah. And You know, a waterproof case for your phone, dry bags, the ever popular Opinel number eight knife. Oh, sure. The kind of a farmer's field knife. Yeah. Some darn tough socks, which is as soon as you get into reading more about backpacking, it's like, there's only one sock that people seem to buy and suggest, which are these darn tough ones. Yeah. Uh, you know, I, I don't have a store nearby that sells the darn tough stuff. So I'm used to the Hiker GX. Right. Socks that, uh, like MEC carries and, and they're great. but these ones are apparently nearly indestructible. And then everything from, you know, the, the kind of ultra light, uh, stuff sacks that are also like dry bags, which, uh, I've got a couple of those for Clipperton so that I can get onto the rib and not worry about a camera or, or whatever. And yeah, and then, uh, kind of cool collapsible water bottle, a little Sunto clip on compass, which I hadn't seen before. It's kind of neat. And then the obvious stuff like the adventure medical kits and things like the little flashing red light you can clip to your bike or the back of a backpack. Oh, nice. I thought it was a pretty cool list and at $20, I think pretty much anybody who's in the gearing up mode for the warmer months could probably find something on there either to replace something they broke last year or kind of fill a pain point that they had on their last trip. Hit the show notes for that one. Pretty straightforward article. Yeah.
Unknown I think between that and, uh, our sub $250 watch episode, I think, I think we're turning into kind of a nice, uh, a nice resource for people that, uh, that are on a budget. I think it's great.
Unknown Well, yeah, I mean, watches certainly don't have to be expensive and certainly most gear. There's some stuff that I would argue if you plan to do anything for multiple seasons, you pay a certain amount for like your sleeping bag. Yeah. But even that, If you're going to sleep in the car or like, it all depends on your scenario. Camping can be really inexpensive and a lot of gear can be sourced used and be less than. Sure. Then even people are going to talk about on outside online or otherwise, just, uh, you kind of have to buy to how you're going to carry it. Yeah. I think that's what it comes down to. So yeah, I'm sure we'll get into more kind of camping gear, hiking gear as the season goes on. Uh, right now it seems like we're both pretty focused on diving or at least you have been and I am now. Yeah. And, uh, and yeah, so what's, uh, what, what have you got for your next one?
Unknown Yeah. So I've, I've got a second kind of a last, uh, final note. It was a good article, um, on Condé Nast travelers website. It might've been in the magazine as well, but I saw it online and it was called men on a mission, a hunt for whiskey and tweed in Scotland. I like it. Yeah. Great, great title. And it was a cool article. It was actually written by a guy named David Coggins, who many people might know from, He's kind of a men's sartorialist fashion style writer. He's done some writing for Continuous Lean. Oh, cool. He's written a book called Men and Style, which I saw him speak here in Minneapolis last fall. He's kind of a witty, interesting guy.
Unknown Is that the one with Cary Grant on the cover?
Unknown No, there's a pair of shoes on the cover.
Unknown Ah, okay. I have one with Cary Grant on the cover with a similar title.
Unknown Oh, yeah. And then the photography was done by a guy named Matt Heronic, who you and I spent some time drinking whiskey with Matt at the Cartier dinner at SIHH last year, if you'll recall. Of course, yeah. So, you know, Matt and David are kind of known to us. And anyway, they did this story together with a guy who I think he's a clothes designer from New York. And they went to Scotland to kind of make a pilgrimage to the Harris Tweed headquarters, which I can't remember the name of the island that it's on, but it's off the coast of Scotland in a very windswept, picturesque place. And I think they rented a Land Rover for part of the journey, and then they had to take a ferry. They kind of incorporated visits to some of the famous Scotch distilleries there, as well as the visit to Harris. And they stayed in some kind of neat, sort of classic country inns. Matt did a little bit of, uh, uh, he went to stag hunting one day with, with the locals, you know, Scottish, uh, games keeper at one of the inns where they stayed. And it just, it felt like one of those really well-rounded thematic, uh, travel stories that I, I so love. And I think, uh, um, it's, it's a trip, you know, that, that I could see myself wanting to do someday. I've long wanted to go to Scotland and I would love to, You know, visit the distilleries. There was a trip I remember reading about years ago where you could see kayak from distillery to distillery and, or, you know, hike across the moors and the highlands from distillery to distillery. I'm not sure how straight you'd be hiking after you visited a couple of them, but, I don't know. It's just, it was a, it was a fun article, some, some great photography and we'll put a link in the show notes, but it was, it was just a fun, a good read.
Unknown Yeah, cool. I, uh, I skimmed it, but if I'm honest, I saved it to pocket as I plan to read it on the boat. I'm just kind of storing up some of the longer, cooler looking stuff, uh, as I come across it. So that sounds great. And yeah, the photography looked fantastic. So again, all in the show notes, everything we talked about today in the show notes. So I think that's about it. Yeah, I think so. Alright, so as always, thanks so much for listening. Hit the show notes for more details, you can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton and at J.E. Stacey, and you can follow the show at TheGreyNado. If you have any questions for us, please write TheGreyNado at gmail.com, and please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts, or you can grab the feed directly from the website at TheGreyNado.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzer via the free music archive.
Unknown Until next time, we leave you with this quote from the character Q from Star Trek The Next Generation. If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you should go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires, both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid.