What a Diver Really Wants w/ Frendy Mgee (268)

Published on Wed, 13 Dec 2023 20:09:14 -0800

Synopsis

In this episode, the hosts Andrew and Everett are joined by their guest Frank, an avid diver, to discuss what truly matters in a dive watch from the perspective of someone who has extensive experience diving with a wide variety of watches. Frank shares his insights on essential features like water resistance, legibility, bezel grip, and crown accessibility, debunking common myths and highlighting practical considerations based on his diving experiences. They also touch on topics like dial colors underwater, bracelet and strap options, and the importance (or lack thereof) of certain features like helium escape valves and lume for recreational diving. The conversation provides a unique and informed perspective on evaluating dive watches as functional tools rather than just style pieces.

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Transcript

Speaker
Andrew	Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 in 20, the Watch Clicker podcast with your hosts, Andrew and my good friend Everett here. We talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you?
Everett	Super duper.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	Pizza for lunch. I did have pizza for lunch. I had pizza for lunch. It's crazy. Uh, yeah, actually my pizza was kind of disappointing. It was, it's like the, the best pizza place in town and I, The pepperoni was okay, but the other one was like, meh. What'd you get? Oh, I got the one, I can't remember what it's called. It had like chicken and- Oh, that's too much.
Andrew	Especially for reheated pizza. Display temp pizza, you gotta go like really minimal toppings.
Everett	Yeah, yeah. It's one of those like by the slice places where they make the pizzas and then you order it and they stick it in the oven for two minutes and then they serve it. But it's actually a pretty good pizza. It's normally very excellent. And it's four bucks a slice. Which is seems like a lot, but it's fun. Yeah, it's a big slice. It's a it's a big slice. Actually, I really only need one, but I always get two because it's because of America and America. It's four bucks. Yeah. Andrew, how are you?
Andrew	I'm good. It was. Yeah, everything's good. Like just perfectly normal. Like it's been kind of a warm winter so far, but I'm drinking beer and we've had a couple of cold days, but it's been warm.
Everett	Yeah, like 40. It was 60 degrees the other day.
Andrew	Yeah, it was hot. I took my jacket off and left it off all day.
Everett	Yeah. Weird.
Andrew	Weird. Yeah. Weird. But it's good. I'm excited about today because today we've got a cool thing going on. We've got our partner, Mr. Frank Affronti here joining us. And and so I just live from New York. Exactly. Live from New York. It's Tuesday night. We've got Frank here. And I just want to frame our episode real quick before we dive into how Frank is. So, uh, as you all know, Frank Friendy McGee is a, I even venture to say more than a hobbyist diver.
Everett	I think it's like literally a hobby for him.
Andrew	Yeah. But I think it's more, I think, you know, I think there's plenty of hobby divers in the world who don't go underwater as much as Frank does. Um, so with that, I had this idea that we would talk to Frank, not just because we wanted to talk to Frank and have a good reason to do so, but also because I think that there's a reasonable argument to be made that Frank is probably one of maybe the top 10 divers in the world with the amount of watches that he's worn. I think when you, when you, intersect those two things, there might be 10 people, but probably not in the world who have diven, dove, dived with more watches.
Everett	I'm going to be, I'm going to go on record just for the record. I think that's crazy talk, but I'll let you have it. I'm not going to, I'm not going to argue. I'm just going to go on the record that I think you're absolutely crazy.
Andrew	With more watches. This, that's what he does. He's like, Hey, I'm going to go on a dive trip for three days. Let me bring these 54 watches. I'm going to photograph them all. It's not a big deal. I'm going to wear them all and they're going to get underwater with me. It's going to be awesome. But with that, I wanted to invite Frank to talk about what actually matters in a dive watch. Cause we all love dive watches, but what the fuck actually matters in a dive watch? I like that. And speaking from a person who has a great amount of experience in diving and multiple watches and a wealth of diverse knowledge of watches, this is a This is a person who wealth of diverse knowledge we're getting. Yeah, we're just adjectiving right now. This is a person who knows what matters in a dive watch. And I'm interested in Frank's opinion. So Frank is like kind of losing his shit right now, laughing at me. You can unmute yourself, Frank.
Frank	How are you? Hey, man, thanks. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate all the accolades. Continue to shower me with praise if you want to just keep doing that the whole episode. I'll just sit back and make sure I get it recorded so I can show it to my wife tomorrow and she can be aware that I'm a top 10 diver in the world with watches.
Andrew	I'm not sure how true that is. Name five people who you can say with certainty have taken more watches underwater than you.
Frank	You know, it's our show and I'm not going to give anyone else the limelight. Exactly, because there's not.
Everett	Um, but I would say listen to this because he's, he doesn't, if he does, he's shitting his pants. Like these guys are out of their fucking minds.
Frank	I think at least one of them certainly has rights for us. And that's Mr. Furry.
Everett	He, well, and, and will Benny, who is a commercial diver. So we're at three. Yeah. And this is just within our little circle here.
Frank	So doing the math, I will, back up somewhat of what Andrew said in that the WatchClicker currently on staff has more divers that are writing for WatchClicker actively than any other blog and it's not close. There's a couple, I would say hobbyists that want to dive and sometimes they wear watches and then there's like real pros and then there's like Seiko funding a trip to Antarctica and they got Becky diving through ice tunnels yeah there's that too but like in terms of watch coverage sites the watch clicker is is head and shoulders i would say above others in in this regard although it's it's extremely niche it's not exactly a competitive field it's very specific that i they they handed out those awards at the grammys last year the watch blogs with the most dive adjacent hobbyist
Everett	Riders. And somehow we didn't like it. I can't believe we didn't get it.
Andrew	We were robbed. Yeah. So we're super glad to have you and happy to have you for a number of reasons. Number one, we'd love to see you. We don't see you enough. And number two, this is a topic that I think is, I think, interesting. Sure. Sure. And meaningful to all the people, at least to me. I don't know if any of you care if we're going to talk about it. But I wanted to talk to somebody who dives a lot wearing watches and what actually matters.
Everett	Yeah. What, what are the qualities of a dive watch that you really care about? Because we talk a lot about, you know, I think it's almost a trope to make fun of helium escape valves at this time. You know, it's, we're not alone in that. Um, and it's not that we're making fun of the function of it. It's more just that anybody who, anybody who, who would possibly be buying a dive watch, if you need that, you know, you need it. And you're like one of actually one of 10 people.
Andrew	Um, yeah, there's like a, there's less than 500 of those people.
Everett	That's that's right. And so, you know, in that context, what are the things that we think make a good dive watch that that maybe don't matter and what are the things that actually are important to someone who's diving and why that might result in a different watch choice than, than the choice you make when you wear a dive watch to red bar or whatever.
Frank	Yeah. And I think it's important to frame this in that we're talking about recreational scuba diving here. We're not talking about, um, you know, saturation diving for sure. We're not talking about that. And we aren't going to be talking about sort of skin diving like snorkeling. We're talking specifically on this segment of the episode about recreational scuba and within the bounds of recreational. We're not talking about like, you know, you're doing multi-tank staging and you're going in through a cave or whatever. This is like, if you want to pick up scuba diving and you want to get a watch that you're going to take scuba diving and you're going to go get your you know, recreational open water diving certificate, and you want, hey, I wanna watch this, it's gonna accompany me on my dives, this is what this is gonna be for you.
Everett	Why don't we start there, Frank? Why don't we start by defining what we're talking about when we're talking about recreational scuba diving? How long, how far, how deep? I'm trying to think if there's any other innuendo I can come up with.
Andrew	All day, all night.
Everett	And as deep as it goes. What are we actually talking about, though, in terms of the the distance, the locations, the the necessity of of depth protection, that sort of thing?
Frank	Sure. So. Recreational scuba diving, as it's defined by the two major organizations, which are PADI, which is the biggest, and that's what you'll see sort of internationally and then north.
Everett	And what you'll see on your Seiko diver. Sure.
Frank	That you love so much. Yeah. You'll see that on your Seiko diver or, or others that have done collabs with, with Patty. But the other organization that you might see is called Nowy. They're by and large the same, the exams and trainings, at least for open water are going to be the same. And for both of them, the first certificate that you'll get is open water diver. That's going to take you down to 120 feet. Um, past 120 feet, actually it might be 90 feet for open water. And then when you get your next search, it's, it's 120. I think now he is 120 off the bat and Patty, there's one gap in between. I'm a little unfamiliar on the, the entry point for Patty, because I actually did a now insert. And then I did a Patty certification next. So I have a little bit of both, but you're going to get to. roughly 30 meters, um, 30 to 40 meters on that first open water dive, um, certification. And that's going to get you basically some pool training. You're going to do maybe a three week course, a couple of days in the pool each week, and then some classroom work. And then you'll take a test and the test is usually take home. Um, they'll talk about all of the, you know, safety aspects of, of diving, what your checks are so that you can check your buddy so that you can check yourself. What are the risks, the different issues that you can have, whether it's like a blockage in your ear or a reverse blockage when you're coming back up and stuff like nitrogen, narcosis and, and getting narc, so to speak, or, or getting the bands, they're going to talk about those sorts of things.
Andrew	But it's basically like how, how to not die. while diving to a depth that is a little bit out of like normal human capabilities without supplemental oxygen.
Frank	Yeah. And that depth was basically empirically decided upon from the original Navy divers that, that developed the dive tables. And they said that if we follow these constraints, when we're going diving to this depth, we know without a beyond a reasonable doubt, that you're going to come back up and not die. And then since then we've produced additional like safety measures that you can use like computers and that'll calculate your dive along the way. But we've, we've kept that constraint that was initially set by the U S Navy, you know, back in the sixties or fifties or whenever they did it. I'm, I'm not the, that might be off by a couple of years or so, but that's the general gist of it.
Everett	This is, This isn't a class on the history of diving, right? So that's. We're going to we're going to take liberties and be fine with it if you're at home freaking out. Yeah, don't at me. Yeah. Worry about yourself.
Frank	Yeah. Mind your business. It's free.
Andrew	OK, so we've got kind of like the parameters of recreational diving. So sort of your entry level, you're looking at at like north of 120 feet or 120 meters. You said we're looking at feet, right?
Frank	North is the right word above. You're not going past 120 feet. And then once you go past 120 feet, you're going to need additional certifications. And usually like most people don't dive alone. Even when you get the advanced certs, when you go ahead and get your open water diver, most of those people that get that certification are going to go and pay a dive boat, a charter to take you on a dive. They're going to guide you. They're going to show you where to, where to go. And they're going to do all the navigation for you and Most of the time, they're never going to take you past a hundred feet period because of all of the, the ifs and buts, and they don't know exactly who you are, what you've done in the past. And if you're a capable and competent diver, um, the stuff that goes deeper than that, either you're going to have to build rapport with those people or do it yourself. And then, you know, all of the risks you have to, to buy and own.
Andrew	And nevermind the creatures that live.
Frank	At that depth and below. Yeah. Hopefully you get to see him, but I mean, unfortunately, most of the ocean is dead.
Andrew	There's something to be said there. Okay. So, um, what level of certification do you have? Do you have like the, like, where are you at?
Frank	Currently I have a open water through now and then an advanced open water through Patty and then a nitrox certification through Patty as well. And then I'm sort of in the process of, of rescue diver. Um, I think it's, it's kind of the next logical step. Um, and it gives you the ability to assist other divers. And because when I go on these kind of photography trips and endeavors, I, a lot of times I'm diving either alone or with, with my spouse who we dive together and we go unguided and we do our own navigation and, and plan our own dives for the purpose of photography. So when you're being guided, there's not a lot of opportunity to like sit still in position and set up a composition and do your own thing because you're, you're following a guide. Um, so for us, that's kind of the next logical step. And currently we're at that advanced open water, which gives you a little bit deeper and you get some more training on a navigation and stuff of that nature.
Andrew	So what's your depth rating?
Frank	130 feet.
Andrew	Okay. So Speedmaster depth.
Frank	Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You could take your Speedmaster there.
Everett	Just don't push anything. Or Timex Weekender depth. Yeah.
Andrew	So with that, I want to tell you what I think is important in a dive watch. And then I'd like you to just like shred my position. You sent us notes and And that's on you. Maybe it's on us for like letting you think that you were going to drive this conversation, but that, you know, whatever. Uh, so I think first and foremost, legibility in a dive watch. If you're not using a dive computer, I assume that you use a dive computer because you're a responsible human adult.
Frank	Are you asking me, are you asking me how to use a dive computer? Yeah. I typically dive with two computers.
Everett	Most, I would say most competent. Frank, that was a fair objection. This isn't a deposition. Okay. It was a statement. You're right. Objection asked and answered. Okay.
Andrew	So you do use a dive computer. Okay. But what remains is you're wearing a dive watch because it's a valuable tool. And because it's cool and because it makes sense. So my first thing that I think is important with a dive watch is legibility. I want big font. I want good loomed font. I want an easy to manipulate bezel. And I want good loom. That's all I think I care about because I'm not manipulating a crown underwater. I don't see a world where the dial color actually has an impact on my legibility. And I want over 110 meters of water resistance because I know it's, if we get to a point where I'm stressing the water resistance of my watch, I'm dead. So like, I just kind of don't care at that point to you, Frank Roboto.
Frank	I'll try to answer each of your points or, comment at least on each of your points. I'll start with the water resistance because my brain goes towards the end and that's the last thing you said. For water resistance, I'm with you on the 110 meters. I think that's plenty. But what I will say is I'll caveat it in that it needs to be 110 meters that I respect from the brand. I've dealt with a bunch of watches. I keep track of the watches that I dive with. And the depths that they brought them to and the amount of dives that I've taken them on. And then the result, right? Have they leaked on me? And currently I've had over 12% of the divers that I, of the dive watches that I've dove with have leaked. Um, those have ranged from anything from 200 meter divers to 1000 meter divers.
Andrew	And what was how, sorry. And I think it's important. How does that relate to the amount of time spent in the water? None. Like did they leak after an hour of a dive or after like being in the water? Cause how, how long are you averaging in the water with these? And I don't mean just like wet, I mean actually submerged, sustained time in the water.
Frank	Sure. Yeah. So I would say an average dive that you're going to be in the water, right from the time you splash off the boat to you getting off the boat is going to be roughly an hour. Most dive charters are going to cap you at 45 minutes, but what I'm doing my own dives, I might stay down there for 90 minutes and be coming up to a shallower depth and just vibing at, you know, 20, 30 feet where there's the best light. That's when the most sea life is active. But like I've had in the worst scenario, I've had a thousand meter diver leak on me in 12 feet. And I was down there for half an hour. Um, and what I'm getting at- Where did the intrusion start?
Andrew	Or did you like note at 30 minutes, suddenly you're seeing an intrusion?
Frank	Yeah. So you're, that's the other thing is, is most people think like, Oh my God, my watch leaked. And they like their watch is going to explode on their wrist. That's not what happens. Usually it's like a really, really minor leakage and you're not going to notice until hours after your dive. And then you're going to see the humidity under the dial, under the crystal. You're going to see the water droplets on the crystal and you go elite, which is, that's the only type of leakage that I've had. I've never had like, look down at my watch and I see water gushing in from the crown. Like that, that doesn't happen. The most common situation I see is from a pinched crystal gasket or a pinched gasket on the case back. And the issue is, or why this happens is most manufacturers, most makers of the watches are not pressure testing or wet testing every single watch they they're putting out. They're doing some percentage of it. Maybe they do 10% if they're really ambitious. Um, maybe Everett can, can comment on this cause I'm sure you pressure tested some of foster watches.
Everett	Yeah, we, we do, but it's a, it's a small selection.
Andrew	ISO requirements like 5%. It's low.
Everett	Most watches aren't certified either though. It's not part of our QC process when we send watches out. So we did get, we, we have had some watches returned because they took water and you're right. The reasons they took water. In fact, I think we can all, we can almost say universally they were a pinched or some sort of tweaked case back gasket. Uh, you know, there's some easy fixes there. And I think it's, it's worthwhile to know that any watch that you're going to be taking in the water, it makes sense to, it makes sense to lubricate your gasket on the case back. Um, and, and perhaps to, to change the gasket too, if you've taken that case back off more than two or three times, I think there's probably numbers for this. that are more authoritative than what I'm giving. But certainly if it's come off more than a few times, change that gasket out because there's sheer forces. It's going to get micro cracks in it. Just have a handful. If you're taking the case back off, you know, these Seiko modders, right? They may take a case back off a dozen times. They should be changing that case, that gasket several times. So that's true. And you're right. The manufacturers aren't doing that. Some, some do by and large, I would say they're not certainly Foster didn't
Frank	Right. Yeah. And I think that's reasonable. Um, and that's, that's kind of normal place. Um, I guess moving on from water resistance, right? I think 110 meters is fine. Um, I also don't think, I didn't mean that to, to sound like an indictment on people for having their watches leak. I actually think that it's, it's not a huge deal if somebody's watches leak and every time that one has on me personally, the brand has taken care of it without much problem or hesitation. But I know personally that if I posted and said, I've had this watch leak on me and I posted the photo of the watch leaked in the brand, everyone would flame them. And I'm like, that's like, that's not good or productive for anybody.
Everett	And like, I know in reality, this shit happens with Omegas and Rolexes and it just, it just fucking happens. 10% is it's a piece of rubber. We're not, we're not talking about, we're not talking about manufacturing. quality or tolerances or quality control, really, you know, if you get a watch from the factory, it shouldn't leak, but shit happens.
Andrew	But we're also talking about tools, tools fail. Like the dive watches are designed to try to overcome failure, but ultimately they're, they're, they're gonna fail.
Everett	So, so I think it's safe to say water resistance is, you know, we've long been of the opinion that for a everyday wear watch, 110 meters is the right, I think most people accept 200 meters as if you're actually going to be diving, that's probably a good place to start. I think we can kind of move on from the, the issue of water resistance, except I do want to spend a little bit of time talking about, um, hyper water resistance, right? You know, I think famously we've got a number of, you know, Seiko with their motto, cock cases. Um, we've got Omega with their ultra deep range. Now we've got the deep sea dwellers.
Andrew	Uh, we've got notice in the game with the, with the deep.
Everett	That's right. That's right. Both Omega's and, and notice or not notice Rolex is now have taken their ultra hyper Uber deep watches to the bottom of the Mariana trench. Um, how does that apply to, the recreational scuba diver, if at all.
Frank	Yeah. I, I would say this was maybe my main point on this is that like that 1000 meter diver that you're going to buy is just as likely to have a pinch crystal gasket or a pinch case back gasket as the 200 meter. And I've had thousand meter divers leak at me. You don't need that water resistance anyways. Like you're just paying for the extra thing. And we'll get into this a little bit when we talk about like case size. I hope we talk about case size, but a bigger diver isn't necessarily what you want because it's in the way. Like this is ultimately a backup, backup, backup tool for you to use. And if it's in the way, why are you bringing it with you? It's just, it doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't be a worry that you have. And for you to a spend the extra money and then B have something that's that's large and obtruse, knocking on things or, or being in the way while you're putting on your, your BCD. Um, it's in, it's, it's not worth it. The next thing, Andrew, that you said was the loom. I actually don't really care about loom as far as like purpose while you're diving. Um, the overwhelming majority of people will never dive at night, including the people that are diving. Like most people don't dive at night. It's, It's scary. Most dive companies won't take you out on a night dive unless they've already dove with you a few times. And if you do want to do it on your own, you're bringing, like I do personally, like three or four between myself and my dive partner, 1000 plus lumen torches, like 2000 lumen torches that I just like can blast stuff with. And the idea that like I need some massive lume plot to be able to see my diver at night underwater is just like, it's beyond laughable. You can just hit it with your torch if you really needed to. And then like, even if you use the cheapest dive computer, which is put out by Suunto, you could buy one on eBay right now for like 150 bucks. I have a couple of them. They're fully loomed. Like the whole, the whole computer is loomed and it's, we're talking like 54 millimeters. it's brighter than any of the divers that you're going to get. And it's fully loomed. And it's like, Oh man, I need my diver to have loom plots that are big and loomed. And, uh, but it doesn't matter. Cause I'm looking at my computer anyways, and it's 54 millimeters and it looks like, I don't know, the, the moon on my wrist. It just, it's silly.
Andrew	Okay. Well, so shut up, move on your next point.
Everett	So I think, I think what you're saying is, Loom has been rendered unimportant because of modern technology. In the modern diving setting, loom is just not important.
Frank	Yeah, I think you're correct on that. It's just, it's not an issue. It's not a real problem to have. And that Suunto Diver that I mentioned that is fully loomed, it also has the equivalent of like Timex Indiglo. the thing lights up and it's loomed and I need two of them to fail before I'm even going to look at my dive watch. So it's just, it's not a huge problem, especially because most people aren't diving at night anyways. Um, I've been diving now for over five years. I've only been on four night dives. I wish I would, I was on more, but like it's, it's far and few to, to come between because either the dive shutter doesn't open it. or offer it, or you have to be super, super comfortable with the dive site to be able to do it yourself at night.
Andrew	Uh, when you say you've had over 10%, uh, water intrusion, are you including your dive computers in water intrusion? Or is that, is that not an issue just because of the way they're manufactured?
Frank	I haven't had a dive computer leak. No, but yes, they are included in that. I, I consider them the same, the same thing, but you've never had one leak.
Andrew	So I've never had one.
Frank	And I would also state that like, for me personally with dive watches, specifically my service interval, like how often I get that watch serviced is, is based on dives. How many dives I've had that watch on once it hits a certain number, I send it in for service. Um, because I don't trust either the gasket anymore or it's just like, why, why risk it? This watch has been through a lot. It's got a lot of salt bull crap on it. I might as well send it in and get it, get it touched up and have all the gaskets replaced.
Andrew	Yeah. So let's maybe skip my, my opinions because they don't, they don't matter.
Everett	Well, no, let's, let's get, let's get to Andrew's third one. And I think, I think that this is perhaps maybe a more functional So, and actually Frank, I think I'm going to ask you, I think I'm going to ask you as we move along this conversation, maybe to suspend your disbelief in terms of the reality of diving with a watch, because while I can appreciate the reality, you know, I think it's important for us to think about this as a tool, at least for the purpose of the conversation. And that would bring us to Andrew's third point. And I think this is likely to be a good one based on the fact that I read your notes before the show. Uh, which is, which is the grip of the bezel. I suspect that's going to be a, a bigger point than those other two and probably more important to you.
Frank	Yeah. I, I think the bezel is the biggest thing, um, to Andrew's point though, on my notes, I don't think we're going to talk about it a ton. The legibility I think is important and by far the flat crystal outperforms everything. So like, if you're going to go buy a dive watch and you want to take a diving, the box crystal, the dome crystal, all that stuff looks really cool above water, but underwater, like you, like it, it makes the watch.
Andrew	You have two layers of distortion.
Frank	Yeah. It's, it's super difficult to read. Um, but let's, let's move on to the, to the bezel. The, the first thing to touch on the bezel, everyone loves to like, maybe it's a fun fact when you first get your dive watch, you're like, Like, did you notice that it only turns one direction? It's because it's a safety feature and you can't bump it and it always makes sure that you have less time underwater than you planned. It's just, it's not a real thing. Nobody has ever done that. And if they have, I haven't heard of it personally. I've never done it. I don't know anyone who has. No one can bump a dive bezel and like move it underwater. It's really difficult and unreasonable that that would ever happen to you.
Andrew	And if you did, it would move one click one and a half minutes. Yeah.
Frank	Yeah. If you're okay for a minute and a half. You're a hundred percent right, Andrew. Um, that's, that's exactly on the point. The bigger issue that I see constantly on almost every single dive watch is that in between dives, if you're going to do more than two dives and like the most common way that you will go diving, if you, if you choose to pursue scuba diving is you'll go and do a two tank dive with some charter, meaning you'll go scuba diving in the morning, you'll stay on the boat, they'll serve you tea and crackers. And then two hours later, you'll go back in the water. If you do that with 90% of dive watches in between the salt from the saltwater is going to solidify underneath the bezel and you can't use it. Like I'm saying, it's like impossible for you to turn. without soaking it for an extended period of time in freshwater or really working it out. There are dive watches that have mitigated this issue. And the main way that you can do it, the easiest way is to like have just enough purchase that you can just grind up that salt. I hate to give them praise, but Doxa does a really great job of this. They have a phenomenal purchase on their bezel. So having purchase on your bezel is massive and then the different finishes on the bezel, I'm gonna just quickly say the ones that I personally don't like and the ones that I do like. I don't like coin edge bezels. I think they're really difficult to grab, sloping outwards.
Everett	Give you what? Give us some examples.
Frank	I'm struggling to think of a coin edge one off the top of my head, but the most classic bezel that sucks to use diving is the Omega Seamaster, the sloping outwards of that bezel and the scalloped. It's just like not, it's just not good to use.
Andrew	It's designed to grip, but it's also like highly lubricated.
Frank	Yeah. And they've, they've spent, I don't know how many years with the same bezel and being told the same thing that this bezel sucks to use and they don't change it. I don't, I don't know why they choose to do that. Especially when they continue to push this narrative that like it's the sea master. Name it something else that it's not the sea. I don't know. It's not the master.
Andrew	The sea protege doesn't have the same ring.
Frank	Right. I don't know. So maybe I'm being harsh there on Omega because I really do like their dive watches, but, but the scalloped bezel, it does not work well. Um, having like a really thin edge doesn't work. And then the next thing is having the bezel not be Either significantly bigger than your dive watch. I know that gives a specific look that a lot of people might not be into or having the bezel be significantly smaller. So think, um, torn new cases or like, you know, a case that slopes to the bezel. So when you grip it, your fingers are going to slide to that bezel and then it has enough height that you're actually going to be able to grab it. Those are huge.
Andrew	How about a shroud?
Frank	I don't, I don't love the shroud. I really don't because it fills with salt. It just like gets caked inside of there and then you can't clean it.
Everett	I'm curious about this. You know, I've been on a lot of forums. I know Andrew has too. This is not an issue. The salt water, the, the salt, uh, problem is not something that I think you hear about very often, but that seems to be something that you've focused on a lot, both in your notes and on the show today. Uh, how big an issue is that? And why is that something that we don't hear more about?
Frank	I think it's because most people don't go diving with their watches. Um, and then even if they do go diving with their watches, I really, I don't want to be this guy, but I'll do it for the sake of the show. Most people, when they go diving and they jump in the water, if they're not experienced, like they're going to forget to even touch their watch. Like they're just there. They're going along. They're just enjoying the ride. They're just enjoying the ride and they're not even touching it. And that, and that's fine. Um, but this I would say is like the biggest issue with dive watches is that the bezel is borderline unusable for the second or third dive. God forbid you're doing four dives in it. You might as well throw it in a drawer and leave it for tomorrow.
Andrew	Um, so, so that one 15 minute dive timer. you better sink your dives is, is what you're saying.
Frank	So that I, as we're talking about bezel, the other thing I'll point out is I don't personally like to use it as my dive timer, right? Like the elapsed time. That's not, in my opinion, the best use of a dive watch. I think the best use of a dive watch is for navigational purposes. So use your, your two computers that you're diving with. Um, for your lapse time and then algorithmically computing your your node decompression time from the different depths. Let them do that and then use your dive watch to to do navigation. So I'm going to set my compass at north and I'm going to go that way for 10 minutes and then at 10 minutes I'm going to go east for 10 minutes and then south for 10 minutes and then west for 10 minutes and then I'm back at the same point. So I'll use my dive watch to start and then reset my navigational movements so that I can end up where I need to be when I need to be there.
Andrew	Um, or when you're, when you're doing a 10 minute navigation underwater at depth, what are you using as a reference point? Cause I've done a significant amount of land navigation of land navigation underwater at depth. You don't, have, at least I don't think you have the same kind of visibility where you can azimuth a fucking tree or a hill or something as your reference point. What are you using as a, as, as your grounding point for that 10 minute navigation? Cause you're also working with currents and with lack of visibility.
Everett	And for anyone who's done and for, for anyone who's done traditional compass based land navigation, they'll know exactly what Andrew's talking about, but I'll just briefly for the purposes of folks who may not be familiar. You know, one of the, one of the primary army competencies or, or, or soldier competencies is what we call land nav.
Andrew	Warrior level one skill.
Everett	This is where you, where you use a compass and, and likely a map with a coordinate based system to move from one place to another. And one of the things that you do in this process is you, what we call shoot an azimuth, which is you find the direction from where, from a known point, and you need to go in a certain direction for a certain amount of yards. And along the way, you'll stop and you'll shoot your azimuth and you'll find a reference point. So... You look through your compass, a little glass. As far away as humanly possible, you find a reference point And you go to that, you go to that. So I think in that context, that's what Andrew is asking. Are you doing a similar thing underwater?
Frank	Yeah.
Everett	And if so, how are you using your watch to do that?
Frank	I think it's a great, a great question. Um, the main tool that you're going to use underwater and that you should carry with you as part of your dive kit, because they're not going to supply it to you. If you, if like you're, you don't want to buy your stuff and your plan is to rent as you go. One of the things they're not going to give you is a compass. They're just not going to. Um, so I recommend buying it. Usually they're about a hundred bucks. Sunto makes a good one, but it's essentially like a, a compass that you strapped to you. That's on a string. I think of like a boat compass that has like the, you know, it's self leveling, but you'll do a little bit of the leveling yourself and you use a rotating bezel on that compass to set your direction. So I always like to set, my arrow to shore. I always want to know where land is depending on what I'm doing. Most of the time when I'm personally am navigating, it's from a short dive, meaning I didn't rent a boat. I didn't pay someone to bring me out to a location. I'm going from shore and then I'm going to wait out into the ocean and then we're going to do a dive at a dive site there. So that's personally what I like to set my one direction as the, as the shore. And then I'll set my compass at, see, I'm going, you know, 95 degrees. There's a couple of common ways that people will track their distances for underwater navigation. Um, the one I like the least is fin kicks. So people will count their fin kicks. Ooh, two, three, four. The reason I don't like this is because everyone's fit a everyone's been kicked are different. B you could have current. So like I could be kicking and counting and then my the current isn't taking me a different, it just doesn't work out right.
Andrew	You could be fighting it or writing it.
Everett	You've got 25 kicks. One direction is 45 kicks the other direction.
Frank	Exactly. It's a silly way to do it. So the way that I personally like to do it is, is via elapsed time. Um, I find that's the best. And then the sec second way that you can do it, which is maybe the more conservative, and this should always be the governor on top. So you can do it in elapsed time or you can, have this be your limiter is by air. So always, you always want to navigate into the current. So you're, you're going with the current, going back to where your exit point is. If you're going to exit at the same point you went in that way, you breathe less air on the way out than you did in. So you don't have to worry about that. And then I'll use the elapsed time and the compass. And then you have, typically you'll split this task. So. One person will be navigating and then one person will be tracking what you need to do. Because if you are in a low visibility situation, it's really, really difficult to maintain your bearing and then worry about multiple tasks in a row.
Everett	So one person might be... Talk to us just quickly, if you can, about how you use a... Sorry to interrupt you, Frank. It sounded like you weren't quite done with that thought. Maybe you'll come back to it, maybe not. Uh, talk to us a little bit about how you use your dive bezel to assist in this, in this process.
Frank	You just start a new timer. So you just rotate your bezel to where your minute hand is.
Everett	So you're using your compass for the direction setting. You're using your elapsed time to, to reference how long you've been going.
Andrew	Correct. And your bezel to like reference you back to earth.
Frank	Correct. Yeah. Your, your compass bezel, your dive bezel is really just an elapsed time. elapsed timer for your direction that you're heading in because like these dive computers that you're using yeah they're highly sophisticated and they're like can do 20 different things and some of you have compasses on them but it's just not super user friendly to do in the moment underwater you got to press maybe you have three buttons you know and you're trying to navigate
Everett	So one of the things you mentioned in your notes, Frank, was, uh, crown size or, or the ability to, to manipulate your crown. Obviously you're not, you're not manipulating your crown underwater. So tell me a little bit about why that was an important attribute for you.
Frank	I like the crown size for the purpose of traveling. I think that crown size is like the poor man's, uh, GMT because you can just change it really quickly. And more than anything, I wanted to touch on the fact that I think the crown guards are useless. They're not important. I think it actually makes it harder to tell if your crown is in or out before you jump in the water. The last check that you might do is to make sure your crown is in. And with crown guards, you just have another obtrusion in your sight to see whether that crown is in or out. And it's not, it's not important. Your hand is in the way. Your hand is the biggest crown guard that you have. Like it doesn't make, it doesn't make any sense to also put the little piece of metal there.
Everett	So in terms of things that are important for dive watches, I go through a couple more things with you that I think may be important. So Andrew went through this list. I'm going to go through my list. Uh, Ziratsu polished ribbon chamfers. How important on a scale of one to 10? 15. Nine. I mean, yeah. Like, uh, Geneva striping on your rotor.
Frank	Yeah.
Everett	I don't think you can dive without it. Yeah. Okay. No, but seriously. So let's talk about a few sort of variations on the classical dive theme. You know, I think they're, they're really, you know, we, we've got traditional divers, which is, you know, the, the Submariner platform that we're all very familiar with. You've got shrouded divers a la Seiko and the Divex 500 I'm wearing today, which I think actually in terms of a functional dive watch, is probably really, really great. Not enough purchase. I disagree. And I think I kind of want to send this to Frank. I kind of want to ship this over to Frank to take on a dive. Cause I think, I think he would be kind of wild about it.
Andrew	I agree. Actually, it's a super easy.
Everett	Um, but you know, and you kind of mentioned the shrouded diver, you you're not a huge fan of the shroud because of the way salt may interfere with the dive. What about the dual crown diver? platform. It's something that I think is, is that we don't talk about a lot in the context of traditional divers, but certainly, uh, uh, a traditional dive format. How do you feel about the dual crown set up it just in general terms?
Frank	Yeah. I mean, it depends, right? If we're talking the classic dual crown diver is modeled after the quote unquote super compressor. Diver. And what I mean by that is that you can manipulate the second crown while you are underwater because of the technology that they implemented so that it actually.
Everett	And when we're talking about super compressor, we're talking about the EPSA, the actual spring-based re reengineered by Christopher Ward a few years ago, but there's, there's it. That's actually a specific technology. It doesn't just mean a dual crown. Sure.
Frank	Yeah. I, the reason I want, I wanted to specify it was because there's a lot of dual crown divers that don't have that, that are just most of them. Yeah. Most of them. If you are going to get that super, the, you know, the real deal, you're going to go get the Christopher award one with two, two crowns and it does the thing and you can use it underwater. I would tell you it's really difficult to use and you'd be better off with a regular bezel.
Everett	Um, there's a ton of really cool ease of manipulation.
Frank	Yeah, you can't. I mean, it's difficult to do, especially like there's like four places in the world that you can dive in warm water. What do you think your fingers are like to use in water? That's sub 60 degrees. Like you really think you can manipulate a tiny little crown. Have you gone out in the cold? I don't know about you, but I'm meant for the Mediterranean. Like my, I can't handle that type of dexterity in cold water.
Andrew	I can't do it. Our input in gloves to wear in your home.
Frank	Yeah. Like I literally, I, I don't have them on currently because I have a heater in this room, but your boy gets cold. So it's just not like a big thing for me personally that the dual crown, I think it's cool, whatever. I think it's more useful in a setting that's not in the water.
Andrew	If you look at like the technology wearing like nine mil gloves when you're diving.
Frank	Yeah. I mean, even if you're not right, like water sucks the heat from you so quickly. Like I think the, The metric is like three times faster than air. Sure. I might be wrong a little bit, but it's close to that. The water sucks the heat from you so fast that even if you're diving in the Caribbean and it's 80 degrees, your hands are freezing by the end because 80 degrees is much colder than 98, which is your, your body temp. So like you're not, you're not going to be able to have 80 degrees.
Everett	Water is not the same as 80 degrees outside. No, go get in your 80 degree hot tub.
Andrew	Yeah. Fuck all that. No, I have I have another really important question. This is something you touched on, and I think in a much greater detail than I was really expecting. I want to talk about dive clasps and. Oh, boy, why is it? Why am I losing it? Divers extensions? Yes. So I want to talk about extensions and I want to talk about quick release.
Frank	Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And and really, really quick before that. There's one thing that you mentioned that you said you did not think mattered that I do. And it's the, the dial color and your initial questions, Andrew, you said, I don't think dial color matters. I'm going to push back a little bit and say that I think it does. I, again, I'm not super keen on giving a bunch of praise towards doxa orange for whatever reason does perform better at depth. And I know this from experience, even though. All of the charts, all of the metrics, everything you look at, orange and red are eliminated from the color spectrum by 50 feet. So it doesn't make any sense, but it's true. Orange does look better at depth.
Andrew	Um, do you think that's the, that's the contrast between white and orange versus white and blue or like white and black? Like, cause we lose red. That's why the, that's why every military on the planet uses red light, like virtually exclusively. is you lose it at distance. It's a, it's a super low wavelength light. So when an orange is, you know, close ish, but you're, you're saying that in your experience, it performs better.
Frank	Yeah. I like the look of orange at 90 feet. Then I do, you know, green or blue or yellow or the other colors that you might have. Um, I think that orange is a fantastic color for a dive dial. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm biased there. I'll send you some photos of the color at depth after this, and you can look at them. If you feel so inclined, we can link them. It's not super important. The class is like, yeah.
Andrew	Oh, sorry, Andrew. We can maybe do a quick, like just a blurb article of colors at depth. And I'll task that to you. Uh, but yeah, no, that's like when I, when I looked at that, I looked at the, at like just kind of my general understanding of the human eye wavelength perception and the graph that you sent. And I was like, I, I accept your position because I have no ability to refute it, but I also don't understand it.
Everett	So Frank, I think probably the most controversial take you're going to take on the show today and not controversial because it's not true. Controversial because it's going to, upset people and their preconceived notions. Talk to us about bracelets, clasps, extensions, all of that stuff. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to steal some of your thunder and say, I understand it's all fucking bullshit.
Frank	For the most part. Yeah. That that's absolutely on the money. The extension clasp is like the biggest marketing gimmick, you know, of what the century for dive watches. Like it is the most, poorly executed aspect of a dive watch, and maybe the most marketed for, for the dollar. Like I could name 30 different micro brands that are all running out the same exact dive extension and putting out an image of Photoshop of their watch next to a bunch of hammerheads. And like, Oh, we have a dive extension. And it's like that dive is caution. A is not enough to go over even a three millimeter wetsuit, which is the smallest that you're going to get. And B, You can't use it after the first dive. The same reason that we talked about the bezel being ineffective after one dive because of salt, that salt gets in the extension class and then you can't use it. You, you cannot use an extension glass that is traditionally manufactured and machined and engineered after one dive because of the, the, the salt. And I know there's a bunch of fanboys that love, you know, the, the old school Seiko or old school Doxa pop, where like you pop and then you have a set limit. Okay, cool. What happens when you're wearing four different wetsuit sizes, and then as you go into depth, your neoprene wetsuit compresses, and so your wrist changes, and now you all of a sudden have a loose dive wash on your wrist. It just, none of it makes any sense. No one uses the extension glass for that purpose because of all the stuff I just said. It doesn't work. They're bad.
Andrew	Um, how quick release go ahead before, how does the fit of your watch change over the course of saying, and you say you go up to 90 minutes and which I mean, which I imagine you're not going to full depth and that unless you are, how's the fit of your watch change with the limited, if any use of an extension over the course of that 90 minute dive?
Frank	Yeah, I, I won't personally dive with an extension. using the extension because of all the stuff that I said. It just doesn't work. It's not even worth testing unless like somebody has something really, really good that they have lined up that they are like purposely asking me to test. I won't even do it because it doesn't work. The aspect of your wrist changing underwater, it doesn't really. Your body is, think of it as water, like your body's 80% water. Water is incompressible, but neoprene is not. So when you go from zero feet to a hundred feet deep, your neoprene wetsuit that your watch should be over top of is going to get smaller. And so your watch is going to get loose unless you, you ratchet it really tight. Or if you look at our, my wrist shots or Will's wrist shots, the most common solution is to like roll your wetsuit up and then put the watch on your wrist and instead of the wetsuit, because the wetsuit is going to change. That doesn't work though in cold water because you have to wear gloves. So the, the only real solution is like a really long, um, like rubber strap or a NATO strap, NATO straps. They live up to the hype. They're actually good. They, they deserve the hype that gets, that gets thrown on them. I know it's kind of cliche, but, but that is the correct choice. If you're going to go diving, put your watch on a NATO, pass through, pass through nylon. Yeah, I wouldn't go with the no pass-through. I would want the pass-through 100%.
Andrew	No, I was just correcting the terminology you used. Not NATOs. They're pass-through nylon straps.
Everett	You know, I think the other option that you kind of skipped over was the rubber strap. Like, I think of the classic rubber strap being the Seiko GL831 or whatever, right? And it actually is built in. with a level of flex, right? So I think the idea being that when you are on the boat, you pull it tighter than you normally would. And that way, when you get to depth, it's, it's able to relax into place and be, and still be tight and still secure to your wrist.
Andrew	You don't find like wrist shrink? Like, I feel like my wedding ring over the course of a day, like in the winter when I'm in my office and it's warm, my ring is tight and is like leaves a noticeable mark in my finger and I go outside for any amount of time, my ring gets loose.
Everett	Well, I think, I, I think that that's a true phenomenon, right?
Andrew	Is that, like, are you feeling a different thing than on your wrist? Cause there's just less tissue on your wrist than on your, on my sausage fingers.
Frank	You're absolutely right on the temperature. The temperature is going to affect your wrist size, but you're not going to regain that warmth. for your wrist to swell again in between dives. So like, you're going to have to, you're going to have to take off your dive watch to put on your wetsuit every single time. So when you put on your watch, after you put up your wetsuit, then that's the size. Then when you take it off and you put it on again after the, you know, before the next dive, your wrist is small because of the cold water and it's going to stay that size. Yeah. You're, you're smoking spliffs, you're doing whatever on the boat, you're having tea and biscuits and then you get back in the water. Everybody's cold. Nobody's judging.
Andrew	I need to start scuba diving with Frank specifically. Well, so I think, I think we're no, no. So we didn't talk a quick release. That's what we want to talk about. So bracelets, we've talked, we bracelets, I imagine performed similarly to everything else. I want to talk quick release.
Frank	Yeah, sure. Um, quick release the, Quick of it is they're bad for diving. Quick release are great for accessibility. A lot of people want to be able to use them and take off their bracelet, change their straps, all that stuff. Great. But when you introduce saltwater, your spring bars have a limited lifespan. They are not going, I know they're stainless steel, but it doesn't matter. They get in there. And then most of the time, the spring in there is not like the same grade stainless steel as like the casing and the, the pins of the bar and your spring stops working and it fails. So personally I replace all my spring bars almost yearly or quicker depending on how often I'm diving. If you have a quick release set up in your bracelet, you can't replace it unless you're like disassembling your bracelet. So it doesn't work. And then once you introduce saltwater and it starts corroding, it just like, is a nightmare scenario for me personally. And then while we're on it, I guess the other thing I'll say about the Nados as well, for everyone who loves to say Nados are the solution. Pass through nylon. Pass through nylons are the solution. Because they have, you know, the dual factor failure point, you can fail at one side and then you don't lose your watch. All right, pass through Nado bros. There's a spring bar at the class, So you're still a single spring bar failure away from your watch failing. So if you're not replacing your spring bars in your knit, in your pass through nylon, it doesn't matter. You're still a single failure away. And I hate to tell you this, the saltwater wins every single time. I shattered my Rolex on a mountain. Guess what? It was probably because of saltwater. It was because I didn't change the bars often enough and they corroded and my Rolex fell right off my wrist because The spring bar failed on a pass through nylon strap at the buckle. So yeah, it happens.
Everett	I mean, do you think it's fair to say that a, that an ideal dive watch would have fixed bars?
Frank	Yeah, but like for a hobbyist, a dude that just wants to get a recreational diving license and like take their watch that they're going to wear to work and wear to their kid's softball game and is going to be the memory. What does your dad wear? or your mom wear in that child's memory, it's this watch. I don't think the first part is the right solution for them. But yeah, if you're building like ideal purpose built, you're waffling, Frank, you're waffling.
Andrew	I have an idea for Everest and it's passed through FKM and I think we're going to make some money.
Frank	I've had a couple and they smell.
Everett	Uh, you know, I'm actually, so I'm wearing an Uncle Seiko 831 on this Divex 500 and it smells, it smells so good.
Frank	Why do they smell sweet? They smell so sweet. They smell like vanilla. It's vanilla.
Everett	It's a vanilla scenting. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know why. It gives me a headache, but I love it. They put vanilla in it. This thing, this thing, depending on the environment I'm in, sometimes people will be like, are you wearing vanilla cologne?
Andrew	Yeah, he came in and I was like, oh, I smell that. And he gave it to me.
Everett	And the first thing I did was give it a good sniff. Unfortunately, I think we need to call it there. Frank, do you have any last thoughts about, you know, any last thoughts about a diver's perspective on dive watches here? You want to sum it up?
Andrew	Because my opinion doesn't matter.
Frank	Your opinion matters, Andrew. Um, the last thing that I would say or less last couple of things, and I don't think these are really hotly debated, so I'll just lay them out and take them or leave them. You still want to get, go for the Sapphire crystal. Um, has like crystal is not enough. It's really easily breakable. That is the one chance that you're going to have your watch actually really flood. It's cause you hit it on something in the, in the crystal breaks. So get, go for this.
Andrew	How often are you hitting things when you're diving?
Frank	If you're shore diving and you're walking in from the shore with like a hundred pounds of gear, pretty likely you're going to fall and smash your watch. Or on the ladder, the metal ladder when you get up.
Andrew	Okay.
Frank	Pretty easily. And I think that is it. Minus case size. I think that stay below 42. 42 or below. That's fine. That's enough. 42 or below. Keep it above 42. Unnecessary. Unimportant. Don't do it.
Everett	Sick. I do really like that Blancpain 50 fathoms by fathoms, which is they're like hyper modern. I think it's 50 fathoms X fathoms. I said by fathoms. I'm sure that's wrong. Uh, but it's, it's giant. I think it's like 52 millimeters. It's fucking crazy. I love it and I want it.
Andrew	Are you prepared to tell us your favorite watch that you've dived in Dovin divd get or maybe top three. I don't I don't want to like make you pick one. Because that seems a little unfair. So we're totally unbiased media outlet.
Everett	No, we're not.
Andrew	But if you could give us like the top couple in your experience, because you've you've dived in a lot of watches more than most people will like like in a single diving expedition you will dive in more watches than a typical individual will dive in in their entire life.
Frank	Yeah so again I really don't want to throw a ton of praise on Doxa and you keep making me
Everett	No, let's have at with it.
Andrew	So me and Frank had like an hour and a half long text exchange, like where he's dissing and loving on Doxa. And I'm like, man, I'm sort of like asking for you to talk me out of this Doxa purchase. Like when in reality you're selling.
Everett	Let's just be clear. Frank has some really good reasons to be unhappy with Doxa. Frank has been a buyer of Doxa. Doxa's customer service, I think, has done Frank dirty. Indeed. Which means they do everyone dirty. And I think it sounds to me like it's not a particularly uncommon circumstance. I think their back end is not great. And that's not terribly uncommon, but for a company the size of Doxa, it's really concerning and really unfortunate. With that said, Doxa is, perhaps more than any other company, making utilitarian, classic, traditional dive watches in terms of the colors that they use, the technology they incorporate. I think you can look at the 300T or the 1000T or the 600T or whatever, right? All of their dive watches are made to be really effective tool watches and they accomplish that. And that's why here we are. 60 years later and you're still hard pressed to criticize DOXA in context of a tool dive watch. It doesn't mean you should buy one and you shouldn't buy one for all the reasons that we've talked about today, which is that you don't actually need a fucking dive watch. You don't need a dive watch. You need a weekender. And yeah, I clipped there. I'm sure. I sat on the board. The board was like, Everett, shut the fuck up. I could hear it. You don't need a dive watch. I think that's the point we're trying to make today. You don't have to need a dive watch either. You don't even need to want a dive watch. Buy the watch that you love.
Andrew	It's waterproof enough. A speedy could deal with Frank's three diving certifications.
Everett	And stop worrying about the dive watch. Just buy the watch that's rad. Buy the rad one.
Frank	Pick the one that's the raddest. The most important takeaway from today is that your dive watch is meant, if you're going to buy a mechanical diver to take diving, is meant to be an add-on luxury enjoyment feature of your dive. It's not meant to be like the thing that you're relying on to save your life. That's not the point. And if it is really expensive, it's just taking away from the experience. Personally, my favorite watch that I've dove with or my most enjoyable, like the best performance was the DOCSIS 750T. GMT that I just sold. If you followed me for a while.
Andrew	I loved that watch. That watch did a really bad. It did the thing to me that the Santos did not put it on. I was like, well, I need a fucking Doxa now.
Frank	Thanks for watching. Really appreciate that. It's a good watch. It's tough, man. It's tough. I, I had to get rid of it. The guy that I sold it to actually has every other dial. So they're the, the, the, whatever the, the dials that they have, the special names, he has all of them. This was the last one. that this guy was buying. Did you charge him double? He paid fair market value, I would say.
Andrew	Yeah, you shouldn't have done that because it wasn't a fair market value acquisition.
Frank	Anyways, aside from that, I would give a shout out to my boy Matt over at Tipsum. So Tipsum, they make a 200 meter diver that is a, it looks like the OG Blancpain. Like the, the original, it's built to that military SPAC way back. And Matt's a terrific dude. Yeah. And he's making a really, yes. Yeah. Matt's a good dude. He's an architect as well. So I'm an engineer. We, we talked about all that jazz and I took that tip. Some nerdy shit. I'm like legit as hardcore of recreational diving as you can do the, the hardest core I would say. And It doesn't have any of the issues that I talked about with the bezel, with the crown, with any of the stuff. It's, it's a great, it's a great diver. It was, it was phenomenal. Flat crystal, great loom for you, Andrew. Um, the, the bracelet was great. It didn't even have an extension clasp, which I love. There's no reason for it. Um, yeah.
Andrew	How are you fitting a bracelet? Oh fuck. Everett's telling me I got to keep it in time. Oh, we got we got to talk more after. Uh, no, you know, how are you fitting a bracelet, though? If you're if you're dealing with some neoprene shrinkage, you don't put it over the neoprene.
Frank	That's the best answer. But you just wear it like I wore it for the most part on a pass through NATO.
Andrew	Nylon. We're not looking to get sued here, Frank.
Everett	Pass through Nylon. Andrew can just shut his mouth. NATO, NATO, NATO, NATO, NATO, NATO, NATO. So Andrew just did a thing. I just had to tell everybody. Andrew just did a thing. He put a glass of whiskey in front of me. It's tequila. And I put it in front of my face. It's so clearly tequila. It is tequila. I put it in front of my face and took a big smell. And it was so shocking to me. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful tequila. It's got a bit of smokiness. It's almost like a mezcal. Really beautiful liquor. But when I put it up to my face expecting bourbon or perhaps scotch and I got tequila, there was a moment and then he made a hand, a hand gesture to me, an unfortunate hand gesture. You like told me to fuck off. Okay. So what I'd like to do here is I'd like to transition into our next part of our show. I think I've given everybody last call on dive watches. I'm sorry if you're at home and you're like Everett and Andrew finish it up. What I'd like to do is I'd like to transition to other things we like, and I'd like you, Andrew, my good friend to start.
Andrew	I will start in a really unusual thing. Uh, so my other thing, uh, every year I participate in a liquor exchange where we all bring our wives and we leave them in the living room. Uh, but in, in reality it's a, white elephant liquor exchange. The rules are floor of $50 and you have to bring a bottle that you would be agreeable to bringing home. Those are the rules. I like it. I like it.
Everett	It's basically spend 50 bucks. Make sure it's something that you don't hate.
Andrew	Yeah. And the diversity that you get is great. So typically it's bottles like from 50 to 75.
Everett	Oh, floor of 50. So 50 or more.
Andrew	Yeah. So a floor of 50. So 50 to like $75 bottles. Um, I brought a, I brought writer's tears, uh, double Oak Irish whiskey, which was delightful. It first ages in American Oak and then ages in French Oak. So you get like really interesting kind of oaky dimensions, which you wouldn't think matter. But when you're dealing with an Irish whiskey, which is really sweet and you start introducing different kind of oak flavor profiles. So that was what I brought. That was a bottle I would be happy to come home with. I typically bring a mezcal or a tequila cause I super dig sipping Mezcals and tequilas. Yeah. Higher end sipping. Yeah. Those could like turn me from whiskey and scotch entirely. Um, there were a couple of bottles up for the steel that I was like looking at and I was like, man, I could, I really want to take those, but I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna roll the dice. And I opened a bag that contained a bottle of Maestro Dobel Agnejo and I've had the Maestro Dobel Blanco that's aged in steel so it's a similar timeline of an Agnejo but aged in steel which is super interesting and it's got like a really great flavor profile. Super bright. Super bright and then they finish it in fresh oak so it's like it's
Everett	You've got a really agave forward.
Andrew	Yeah, it's it's super unique. It's like wholly unlike any tequila you've ever tasted. It's certainly not a mixing tequila because it's aged over seven is what is required from YeHo title, but it aged in steel. So it's like just kind of developing those agave flavors within itself and kind of mellowing them out. And then they hit it with some oak to like brighten that like kind of sharp oaky flavor. It's great. But this maestro Dobell and Yeho is aged, I think seven years is the threshold for an Yeho aging, uh, uh, not sure title, um, aged in oak. And this is phenomenal. It is about 60 bucks, like between 50 and 60 bucks.
Everett	And this, I believe this has a smoke. I believe it's in a smoked, in a, in a fired barrel. Yeah, it's in a fired barrel. I have a barrel, I have a bottle of this at the house and it's really phenomenal. It is a fantastic sipper. You know, I think a lot of people shy away from sipping tequilas, you know, and I think a lot of people will transition straight into sipping Mezcals. This is sort of that middle ground. I would say this is like a sherry forward scotch.
Andrew	Or an Irish whiskey.
Everett	Or an Irish whiskey. That's right. You're getting this really sort of light and um bright it's super citrusy and conversational conversational booze but it's but it's also got that mellowness and that relaxed characteristic it's fantastic super super heavy smoky back end but not like le freugue smoky back end this is a phenomenal sipping tequila Yeah, it actually is. So in the context of scotch, because I think that's where we've gone, that's where it's reminded. It's reminded me a little bit of, um, dirty bird, right? This has got that same characteristic. It's not gonna, it's not gonna knock you out with that smokiness. It's still really easy to drink, but in a way that's in a way that's not so controversial, it feels special, right?
Andrew	It's just like a a half step beyond a daily driver, like a Tulum or like where you could just where you could drink a fifth of that in the weekend with you and your homies. And you're like not sad about it because you're like, well, I wasn't, you know, a cheap bottle. But this is this is not a much more expensive bottle. And the nose on it is so good.
Everett	As shocked as I was when I took that first smell of it, I'm sitting here now and I'm like, man, I might ask you to pour me some more.
Andrew	Yeah, the nose is terrific. So The Maistre d'Aubel and Yeho is just simply delightful.
Everett	And I think it's like 60 bucks a bottle. It's not super expensive.
Andrew	Yeah. I think OLCC has it as like 52 right now. So you're like looking between 50 and 60 bucks a bottle.
Everett	Frank, Frank, you're here. Welcome. You're muted. You're muted. Other things. What do you got? Please unmute yourself before you start talking.
Frank	It does look delicious and I will. remind you, I'm not muted on my end.
Andrew	No, we're muted. You, you, you mean you can, when you talk, you can hear your voice. That's reasonable.
Frank	I mean, like the audio, whatever the point is that that looks, it looks, it looks delicious.
Everett	Although I am, you're saying you're saying for the purpose of, for the purpose of the recording, you're not muted.
Frank	Yeah. For those listening at home, they'll hear me. It, whether you guys do whatever the point is, the daily drinker does seem a little bit concerning.
Andrew	Um, no, a daily driver is like something that you're like totally okay with like pouring a couple of fingers of every day. It's like Tillamore is a daily driver kind of drinking. Like it's not special, nor is it expensive, but it's really good.
Everett	Frank, you're the only one in the, in the recording right now whose doctor told him he had to stop drinking so much. Okay. Um, so,
Frank	My doctor told me to stop drinking so much water.
Andrew	To clarify that, they did say that.
Frank	My other thing today is going to be a camera.
Everett	So... No, we don't allow camera other things. Oh, really? I'm just joking.
Andrew	Go ahead. Or watches, other things.
Frank	Oh, no camera other things? I'm just joking.
Everett	Frank has got a genuine look of disconcert. Horror.
Frank	No.
Everett	Cameras are allowed. And I love the camera you're going to talk about. I don't think we've ever talked about it on the show. And I think that's a grave injustice to the beauty of that camera. So go.
Frank	Sure. And I, the reason I was concerned was because the last time I was on, I'd went to check to see what I said for other things last time. And in that episode, Andrew chastised me for having two.
Andrew	And so I only prepared one. All of our guests have two and I always chastise them. Everett often has two and I also chastise him. I've got two today. Don't worry about it.
Frank	I only prepared one. So today I'm going to talk about the camera, which is a point and shoot camera. It's the Ricoh GR3. Are we going to call this a point and shoot? Yeah, definitely. Okay.
Everett	I love it, man.
Frank	If you've been following me for a while, you know that I like to take my camera everywhere. I have long been in the market for a point and shoot. There's a couple that sort of live in this space and compete against each other. The predominant ones are, are Rico's models, which are the GR three and the GR three X. The only difference between the three and the acts are the focal length. So the GR three, which is what I personally purchased is a, a 32 millimeter equivalent at a, uh, 38 millimeter full size. I would crop ABC. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.
Everett	Yeah. Roughly a 32 millimeter.
Frank	Sure. Roughly 32 millimeters. The GR three X is going to put you at about 46 millimeters. So if you're a, a 50 millimeter preference shooter, that's probably going to be your, your spot. If you like to do more landscape open, like wider shots, the GR three is going to be the, the one that you choose. That's the one I personally went with.
Everett	And the most comparable camera. Let's let's just let's just have it out here. The most comparable camera to this is the X100V, which has been sold out for about three years. Almost impossible to get selling for like one and a half to two times retail, no matter what. It is the soup du jour in this space. Context set, Frank, go.
Frank	Yeah, that's definitely the top competitor. I think the X100V has definitely taken off on the TikTok, as the young folks would say. It's gotten really popular. It's tough to buy. The Ricoh actually, in my personal opinion, and the reason why I chose to buy it is because I think it outperforms the X100V in a bunch of areas. Predominantly it's, it's size, right? The footprint of the Ricoh is smaller than the X 100 V. And I think that you're getting.
Everett	By, by, by a magnitude of like, like 0.5.
Frank	Yeah. I would say 0.5. The Ricoh is legitimately a pocketable camera. The X 100 V is not, it is, it is a camera that you have to have on a strap and you've got to hold, and it's going to feel pretty premium and you're going to want the people in your life around you to know that you're carrying an X100V. And that's part of the vibe. The Ricoh is not that vibe. It's like, you're going to carry this everywhere you go. I'm going to take it in the post office and no one's even going to know it's in my hand. And then I'm going to take the photo that I want to take and I'm going to leave it. No one's going to know that I got it. It's perfect.
Andrew	Why are you taking photos in the post office? You don't take your camera to the post office. I don't go to the post office.
Everett	I feel like I'm going to monopolize your other thing here, Frank. I feel like I'm going to monopolize your other thing here, but I think it's really, I really want to emphasize how important this is. This size aspect, the Ricoh is a tiny camera and it's real small. And within that you're getting things like an APS-C sensor, which APS-C I think is a little bit of a dirty word in camera world. Uh, you're getting, but, but it's a huge sensor. I mean, when you compare this to a lot of the competitors, it's a huge sensor. You're getting a real live sensor, which is the most overlooked aspect in point and shoot cameras. You're getting a phenomenal lens. I've of course not used one of these, but I do believe that I had to almost physically hit you. with sticks to get you to even consider this camera, Frank.
Frank	So what I, what I will say is my budget was much smaller than what I was willing to spend on this camera. And I finally came around to the thought of, you know, suffer, uh, what does it pay suffer once, you know, what it pay once live, cry once by once. Yeah, whatever that is, that bull crap that we use to justify our purchases. This thing is incredible. The lens is so sharp. The autofocus is incredible. The main reason that I personally wanted it over other cameras, like something like a Sony, is you can preload edits to this. So if you want to capture some sort of film simulation or maybe you just don't want to edit your photos. Maybe you're just like a dad that wants to take photos of your kids or a mom that wants to take photos of your kids. You can pre edit all of your photos in this and it's going to give you shots straight out of camera that are phenomenal that you do not need to touch at all and you can shoot.
Andrew	It runs them through the filter.
Everett	We're talking about JPEGs that do the things that you want the raw The raw photo to do.
Frank	Yeah. And, and we're talking about a ceiling.
Andrew	How intuitive is that? As is that like preload edit process. So for like, for like me, I'm, I'm an asshole.
Frank	You would be able to do it.
Andrew	Yeah.
Frank	I would say it's a YouTube video and an app away from being able to download a look, a vibe, a simulation that you like. However, what I would say is the ceiling on this is as high as you want it. If you want to go through and essentially like say you're a photographer and you like editing in Lightroom or Photoshop, all of the controls that you see in Lightroom are already in this camera. You can go through and set your shadows, your highlights, your contrast, your, your sharpness, every single part of it. You can set in this camera, all of your color, and then it'll auto edit it ahead of time and then shoot into it. Correct. And then when you're shooting, you can see, what it's going to look like before you shoot. And this isn't like I I'm saying this camera at this point, I've, I've had this camera now for, for probably four months. I've taken it on multiple trips. I chose to take this to multiple vacations, including, I just took this to the grand Canyon and we did a, I would say plus over, over 25 miles, I would say, Over 25 under 30 mile back country.
Andrew	If it's not rim to rim, I'm not really interested in your gloating.
Frank	Oh, okay. Whatever. Bottom line is I chose to bring just this camera. I decided that my, my Sony, my full frame a seven three wasn't worth the weight to carry backpacking. This is the choice. This is it.
Andrew	This is all you need. Which is a real consideration when you're talking about a 30 mile trek.
Frank	Yeah, 100% 100% is a consideration. And if you're just looking for something to capture your family and you want it in your pocket, this is it. Like this is the obvious choice. If you're looking for a camera, just buy this, just, this is the choice. Um, that's my other thing. I don't know if you have anything else ever. I know you love this camera as well. You sent me all.
Everett	I'm fucking pumped about this camera. I'm not going to I'm not going to say anything else about it. But I think that I am sorry you didn't do rim to rim. But, you know, whatever I am, I'm just I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to let your comments on it lie. I think that this is perhaps the best camera that you can buy. If you if you're not interested in interchangeable lenses, there's probably nothing better than
Frank	Yeah, I think that should be said. You can't change the lens and this camera cost roughly $1,100 USD. And you can buy it if you're patient within, say, one to three months. You can purchase this camera at retail from B&H or from Adorama or from some camera distributor. If you set up alerts, you can buy it at retail, roughly $1,100.
Everett	And it's a beautiful camera. really fantastic optics, fantastic lenses. It's the pinnacle of point and shoot. Yeah. And I think it compares very closely with the X100V in terms of performance. And I think the X100V has some maybe some some aspects to it that you might you might like better. But if what you want is that pocketable camera, this is the guy. And I'm going to I'm going to give a shout out to Bo slash Aggressive Timing Habits, longtime friend of the show. I know friend of Frank's, friend of Andrew and I, he's the one that really clued me into this camera being up there in terms of things you should be thinking about. But I do think this is the one and I'll probably pick one up at some point. Even as a newly Fuji converted, I think this is the guy. You're just going deeper. I've got another thing. Do me. I've just sent you guys a link. I've sent you guys a link to an Amazon to an Amazon page, which we will link in the show notes. But what I will say is, uh, that Amazon link is misleading. It is. I've linked you guys to a $21 flashlight. This flashlight is available on both Timu and Aliexpress for about a third of the price of what I've sent you. So this is a $21 flashlight on Amazon. It is a seven and change dollar flashlight on Timu or AliExpress. What this is, is a, I believe Borowit. It's a rape whistle. Borowit V3. I'm going to hand it to Andrew. It is about the size of a key fob of a Toyota key fob.
Andrew	It is actually a pretty impressive light.
Everett	A 900 lumen key chain flashlight. What the fuck? That is USB-C. That is USB-C chargeable. This thing is incredible. So I picked this up. The task I had was to purchase a gift for under 20 bucks for both of my lot partners. And I did the thing. You cheated. I went out and I found the best thing you can buy. And I, I don't know why flashlights came. It's actually a two function light. So one, it's got a 900 lumen main light, and then two, it has got a secondary LED light, which is more of a, it actually illuminates the case. It's more of a lantern. That's right. So it's got a lantern, LED lantern function. Um, the lantern functions a little funny, so it's, it's, it's got a white light. It has got a dimmer sort of blue led. It's got a red light, which is Andrew mentioned earlier in the show. Red light is very useful or a number of things. The main usefulness of red light is it doesn't mess with your night vision.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	It won't kill your, uh, your, your visibility at night. So if you've established night vision. and you need to illuminate something, if you use red light, it's going to have a minimal impact.
Andrew	Pro tip, close one eye if you're going to use white light and you won't blow your night vision.
Everett	It's also got a flashing red light, which can be useful. It's also got a flashing blue and red light, which I think may be illegal. I think may be illegal. I don't know. The LED functions are a little funny, but The bigger function is that is the main 900 lumen. And I'll tell you, I've taken this out.
Andrew	I don't, I heard me laughing. It's cause I'm playing with this light in a well lit room and it's, I haven't tested it.
Everett	So I don't, I can't guarantee the range isn't going to be great.
Andrew	It's got a super wide, it's a floodlight spread of light. It's going to lose. Oh yeah.
Everett	But it's a dual lens and it goes down to a very low frequency, which is going to maintain the battery life. I think it's a 500 mAh, which means it's going to last for quite a while unless you're like, you know, using it. You know, I think this is probably going to last you at anything other than the brightest, you know, the 900 lumen. This is going to last you hours and hours and hours. USB-C chargeable. 20 bucks. It feels great in the hand. Andrew can confirm. It's tiny. It is smaller than the key fob for my Lexus. It fits in your hand. You could put it on your key chain and not notice it. It comes with a little clip. We're going to put a link to this for the Amazon listing, which is 21 bucks and it'll come in three days. But if you don't need this today, go to AliExpress or Timu just Google Borrow It V3. You can get this for $7.50. You could buy 10 of these. And you don't even have to charge them. You could just throw them away at $7.50. I'm over the moon about this thing. In terms of EDC lights, I don't think I've ever touched anything that I was like, I can, I mean, I can just think of 8 billion ways that this would be handy. Y'all heard me giggling. Andrew's giggling. I've blown his mind. And I knew I didn't even take it out of my pocket earlier because I was like, I got to save this thing.
Andrew	Yeah. Y'all heard me giggling about it. This is, this is crazy.
Everett	I think so. There is a company called, sorry, RoVivon, RoVivon, which is sort of a player in the EDC space. They make a comparable light to this. And in fact, I think that this thing has been accused of being a rip off of RoVivon. That's why you go to Ollie. The comparable Rovivon lights are like 60, 70 bucks. This thing's less than $8. It's less than $8. I don't even care how durable it is. It's durable enough. If you don't own one of these, just order one. Stop what you're doing and get one. Go to Timu or go to AliExpress Order one. It's going to get here between six and 25 days. If you really want it soon, go to AliExpress and pay three times as much money.
Frank	Amazon.
Everett	I don't recommend that. That's what I did. But, you know, whatever. Just go to Timu or AliExpress. Spend eight bucks. Get three of them. Just get three of them. I'm telling you, you will not be disappointed. There is there are very few other things that I've ever talked about on this show where I was just like, get them. Buy this. Buy this thing.
Andrew	I, as a person who has lived a significant amount of their lives in darkness, like, like the way that Bane talked to Batman, like you just adopted the darkness. Um, that was me and, and flashlights and, and, and white light control have been a incredibly important component of my life. That is by this thing.
Everett	That's a fucking thing. 750 on Timu. Buy it. So just go buy it.
Frank	Couple questions about the light. No questions.
Everett	All right. We'll just buy it.
Frank	No. So what I'll say is for those of you that are, you know, sub 30, this light has been viral for like maybe two months.
Everett	It has been on tick tock in fairness, which is, which is fine as it clearly should be.
Frank	What I'll ask though, we're a watch podcast as it can be two months behind on fucking flashlights, Frank, as an EDC, as an EDC, whatever. Is this an unprotected cell? The battery.
Everett	I, it is. I don't think it's unprotected. I think it is a constrained Lyon battery. It's not, it's not changeable, but I do think it's like a contained lithium ion battery.
Frank	So you could potentially get an unprotected cell and boost this performance.
Andrew	Perhaps. I'm not a modder. I want it great when you send it to me.
Frank	I mean, if you want it great, pay for the unprotected cell and buy it from Whoever this we're talking about budget stuff here.
Everett	Yeah, but you've, you've actually, you've up to the ante in terms of you've gone read it on us.
Andrew	Yeah. You've up to the end. Sorry guys. And I'm not, I apologize. I don't read it.
Everett	Here's what, here's what I'm gonna need you to do. I'm going to need you to go research this. Come back to me with the information. I'll report it back to the folks.
Frank	I'm actually like six flashlights deep. and they've all been unprotected cells and the chargers have died or they've exploded or they've started on fire or TSA has confiscated them and I'm in need. So this might be.
Andrew	Cause you're not using the right lights. You're not using the, uh, the surefire. What's the.
Everett	Oh, did I, did I mention.
Andrew	The green led glows when you're using it.
Everett	It's not an led. The fuck is it? The plastic is loomed. Oh, that's what's happening. This is off, totally off. Hold on, Frank, I'm going to show you.
Andrew	That gives you cancer. Definitely. And I'm okay with that. Is that legal in California?
Everett	Definitely not. The plastic is illuminated. It's glow-in-the-dark.
Andrew	Everything in California comes with a warning, known to cause cancer. The air, when you pass through California customs, it says, known to cause cancer in California.
Everett	California is the problem. Glow-in-the-dark plastic.
Andrew	Sorry for all you guys who live in California, but you You know that I'm right.
Frank	Yeah. I mean, we agree to disagree.
Andrew	That's fine. You live in New York. I know.
Frank	I wish New York would tell us. I'm not really sure.
Andrew	I appreciate your opinion either.
Frank	I, so I live in New York, but I live in, uh, you know, I live in the sticks of New York and as my wife would tell you about the, the, the crop planes, the planes that go do the chem trails over the crops. I wish they would tell us what would give us cancer.
Andrew	Those aren't chemtrails. What? That's some loom right there. That thing's bright.
Frank	Speaking of which, I've just illuminated the loom on my Divex 500 with this Borowitz.
Everett	Send him that watch. It's glowing. I'm going to I'm going to ship this watch to you. Hey, you guys, if you're still listening, fuck off. What are you doing here? I'm so glad you're here. We are going to wrap it up. Frank, do you have any last thoughts?
Frank	No. Thank you guys for listening. I appreciate you guys having me on. I think that I think that I got to portray myself more like myself this episode. I really appreciate the opportunity and I'm happy that the recording outfit. I hopefully I sound better this time. Um, watch clicker outfitted me 40 and 20 outfitted me. So hopefully this, uh, this comes through in four K and I appreciate it. Thank you guys for listening.
Andrew	We disrespected your notes and that's how we got the true Frank. I did that. I did it in reverse order and disregarded them simultaneously. I think you had good points, Andrew.
Everett	Hey guys, I want to thank you for joining us. for this episode of 40 and 20 with Frank, Frendy McGree, a Frente. Uh, Frendy McGree? Yeah, sure. I want you to check us out on our website, WatchClicker.com. That's where we post every single episode of this podcast, but also where we post articles, reviews, really cool things that are happening. Check out our collaboration with Notice that we talked about on the show last week. Yeah. Uh, I'd also like you to check us out on social media at WatchClicker or at 40 and 20 underscore WatchClicker.
Andrew	The underscore is important. Stop tagging at 40 and 20.
Everett	We're out there. It's not us.
Andrew	Nobody's there. It's a transient.
Everett	It's not us. It's not us. If you want to support us, you can do that at Patreon.com slash 40 and 20. And look, I got to tell you, Frank's new outfit that's paid for by you guys. All of the hardware, all of the software, all of the hosting that we need to keep this thing going. The folks that are on Patreon are making it happen. So if you know someone who's supporting us, hug them. If not, get on there. Give us a buck a month. We love you. And don't forget to check us out next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye bye.