Omega Man

Remembrance of Seamasters past

The night came down, jungle sounds were in my ears
City screams are all I've heard in twenty years
The razor's edge of night, it cuts into my sleep
I sit upon the edge now
Should I make that leap?

I'm the Omegaman
I'm the Omegaman — The Police, “Omegaman,” 1981

Blame it on self pity or the effects of strong painkillers—I bought a new watch last week. This wasn’t a wink-wink/nudge-nudge, discounted prototype press sample or an obscure bargain hunted from the bowels of eBay. No, this was a new-in-box-paid-for-in-person-at-a-fancy-retailer-credit-card-exchanged-for-warantee-card-wound-set-strapped-on-oversized-box-carried-out-to-the-car-with-my-old-watch-inside-it-driving-home-distracted-by-my-wrist-and-that-perfect-light-through-the-windscreen-watch. I suspect many of you know the feeling as well: the twinge of remorse replaced by the heady satisfaction that comes from the smell of the rubber strap, the glue that binds the owner’s manual, and the click-click of a rotating bezel. It’s an experience I hadn’t had in several years and, despite the fact that I still felt like a stabbing victim from my brief sojourn in the hospital, it was (almost) as good as I remember.

As some of you know, I had some impromptu surgery two weeks ago to remove a rogue organ that decided it wanted out of my abdomen. As some of you also know, I’ve been fighting some strong urges to put a new watch on my wrist for some time now. The confluence of these two factors led me to said irresponsible purchase. Now I can justify it as an aid to my recovery, an overdue 50th birthday watch, or something by which to commemorate the publication of my first novel, but I think it might be most attributable to my recently rediscovered love of watches, for the sake of watches. And it also represents a return to Omega, a brand with which I’ve had a long personal history.

My first “big boy” watch and the one that inspired me to start diving.

Many of us remember that first watch that lit the flame of desire and I’ve written at length about my long gone Seiko, bought with grass cutting money in high school. But it was another watch that really set the hook in me, bought in 2007, that not only inspired me to learn about, and appreciate fine timepieces, but also changed my career and my life. That watch was an Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean. My first sight of that watch was on Daniel Craig’s wrist in “Casino Royale,” but I wasn’t smitten with it because of the association with James Bond. It was simply an objectively beautiful watch that, in some way, reminded me of my first Seiko. This was mainly down to the fact that it was on a thick, long rubber strap. It was big, it was capable, it caught the light in just the right ways and it was very expensive—way more than I’d ever spent on anything short of a car up to that point in my life. I walked into Jared Jewelers one winter evening and tried it on. The salesperson said all the right things and I ended up walking out with it on my wrist and some kind of zero-interest payment plan.

I wore that Planet Ocean on a vacation to Mexico. It was a great companion for such a trip, on a tanned wrist paired with swim trunks, in and out of the surf, catching sight of its dial’s funhouse distortion during a snorkeling tour. But something bothered me. I’d by then read enough about the watch, and the dive watch genre, to know what it was designed for (or inspired by, perhaps more accurately) but I didn’t know how to dive. I felt like a poser, like wearing a flight jacket and aviators to the grocery store (guilty as charged). 

The resort where we were staying offered a “Discover Scuba” half-day course—some pool time to learn the basics, followed by a dive on a shallow reef. All I remember now about that dive was seeing a barracuda, and then the feeling of pride and invincibility on the ferry ride back from Cozumel. Now I had to get certified. Back home I took the PADI Open Water course, first in the pool and then in a murky lake, wearing the Planet Ocean for it all. I put a fresh gouge in the bezel by banging against the wall of the pool. By the time I managed to start traveling to dive, after Gishani also got certified, I had already gone down the path of prolific “flipping” and that first Omega was gone, traded for, of all things, a Bell & Ross BR02 Diver. Regrets I’ve had a few…

One warm summer day in the early 2010s, Gishani and I were splurging on an anniversary weekend. We’d spent a night at a downtown hotel, ordered room service, went out for drinks, and then happened into an Omega retailer. We asked to see the then brand new Ploprof 1200 and the recently released 37.5mm Planet Ocean Chronograph. The salesman plied us with champagne, we strapped on the watches, conferred in a corner, negotiated, vacillated, and ultimately walked out with two new watches on our wrists. It was utterly irresponsible, something we’d never do today, yet remains a memorable experience we still talk about. 

The Ploprof came packaged in a huge molded neoprene case with an oversized orange Riri zipper. It smelled and felt like a brand new wetsuit, no doubt the desired effect. The watch was beyond beautiful—hewn from a block of steel with anodized orange aluminum accents, a sapphire bezel, deep shiny dial and the new generation Omega movement visible through the caseback. I wore that watch to Sri Lanka later that year, taking it diving on a couple of shipwrecks and on further adventures around the island for a few weeks. When I came back home, the allure of it faded. My wandering watch eye and horological deficit disorder convinced me that it wasn’t a good daily wear piece and I sold it. Gishani still has her Planet Ocean and it has been underwater in a dozen countries and at least three oceans. 

To this day, I think the Omega Seamaster 300 of the mid-1960s is the most beautiful dive watch ever made. The symmetry of the dial, the perfectly legible and eye-pleasing sword hands, the fully hashed Bakelite bezel, and of course those twisted “lyre” lugs swim circles around the slab sided, predictable Submariner (I’ve never really liked Mercedes hands, if I’m honest) or the brutish Blancpain of the same era. I had one, a 1966 reference 165.024. It was my first foray into vintage watches and I guess I didn’t really know what I had at the time. It bothered me that the hands were bright white, in contrast to the rather corroded and faded dial. I figured something was wrong with it and I ended up selling it, in an example of how watch collecting requires a measure of maturity and patience that I did not possess back then. I’m confident I’ll never have another one, for the prices they go for nowadays. 

While the Planet Ocean was originally praised for its return to elements of the 1960s Seamasters, it was the retro-tastic Seamaster 300 Master Co-Axial that truly drew upon the best of Omega’s vintage divers—slim bezel, perfect case diameter, that classic dial and broad-arrow hands. I took one for a few days of diving the wrecks around Isle Royale in Lake Superior and fell in love with the watch. But I couldn’t help but feel like it was something too little, too late to revisit for Omega. It was like a 50-year old former high school football star pulling out his varsity letter jacket to relive some glory, but the jacket won’t button over his burgeoning middle aged belly. 

I believe that if Omega had kept the basic design of that mid-60s Seamaster, it would today be the modern classic and legend that the Rolex Sub has been for 70-plus years. Instead, Omega went down a meandering path of ambitious and sometimes questionable designs. Some became collectible in their own rights, others mere oddities representative of a struggling Swiss watch industry trying to reinvent itself in the 1970s. By the ‘90s the bright blue, overly fussy new Seamasters debuted—the Seamaster Professional Diver 300M—bolstered in great part by their association with that dandiest of Bonds, Pierce Brosnan. The bracelets were blingy, the skeleton hands too complicated, the scalloped bezel unergonomic. But then a funny thing happened—the watch became a modern classic. 

Don’t look back…

Contrary to its capriciousness of yore, Omega stuck by its avant garde design and a generation of new James Bond fans bought the watch their onscreen hero wore. Along the way came variants—GMTs, white dials, sword hand versions, rubber straps, and chronographs. The lyre lugs of the 60s remained, but with the wave patterned dial, those weird hands, utterly impractical helium valve and slippery bezel, Omega had a watch that looked like nothing else. I think that has worked in its favor and the sheer longevity and prevalence of it finally eroded away my objections. 

The cult favorite, ref. 2254 Seamaster Professional

In 2018, a new generation of Seamaster Pro Diver 300M was released, chock full of features. The movement was the latest generation of co-axial, anti-magnetic escapement, rated to incredible accuracy, and then mounted behind a new fully ceramic dial laster engraved with the signature waves. The bezel was ceramic too. I also got to procure a loaned sample for a week of diving in Bonaire, alongside two other watches from different brands. The Omega quickly became my favorite. After wearing so many dive watches over the years, I’ve come to prize comfort over almost all else, with the possible exception of pure aesthetics. The excellent rubber strap and slim case just felt right in and out of the water. To my surprise, those skeleton hands proved easy to read and the bezel had plenty of grip when manipulated right. This watch was a Sub killer, with an arguably superior movement, more dynamic looks, and a price almost half that of the competing Rolex. 

Diving with the all new Seamaster Pro in Bonaire, 2018.

This rather circuitous history with Seamasters, both owned and borrowed, has now led me to my latest acquisition. It’s the white dial Seamaster Pro. It has all the traits of the one with which I dove in Bonaire two years ago but with, well, a white dial. I’ve not owned many white dial watches and surely never a white dial diver and this is a welcome breath of fresh air. The black outlines on the dial markers and the black high polish of the hands stand in three dimensional high relief from the toothpaste dial. The bezel, when viewed straight on, is bold and athletic, fully hashed with big numerals. From the side, that now familiar scalloped design, though perhaps not the most grippy, has a purposeful elegance to it. This is more dress diver than wreck diver, content to slip unobtrusively under a sleeve or slide through a backpack strap without snagging, but should it be called upon to time a decompression stop, it’s more than up to the job. And then there are the lugs. I think this swooping twist is the best part of this, or any of the great Seamasters. It’s their calling card, the most distinctive element, and one that ties the new generation to those of yore. I adore the strap, with its smartly designed keepers, one with a metal insert to keep it rigid and the other with a locking tab to hold the tail. That said, I’ve already “played with Barbies,” trying on a number of aftermarket straps, from leather to sailcloth, to NATO, all equally fitting. 

On the business side, the movement inspires confidence. I had a chance to visit one of Omega’s workshops in Bienne, Switzerland a few years ago and see where they subject these watches to the battery of METAS certification testing - high levels of magnetism, high and low temperature, shock, and positions, in and out of the case. The movement is not only chronometer certified by the Swiss authority, but Omega then cases it up and further confirms that it will be within +5 seconds a day after all the additional tests. As of this writing, one full week after strapping it on, the Seamaster is only 8 seconds ahead, barely over one second per 24 hours. 

My latest crush.

There’s a lot that draws me to Omega as a brand and to the Seamaster line in particular. The history of military use, from World War II pilots to Royal Navy divers, the development of the original Ploprof for commercial use, Cousteau, America’s Cup sailing, and yes, James Bond. Omega, despite its success over the past decade, and its move upmarket, has always seemed like a more accessible, “everyman’s” alternative to Rolex. While I suspect the brand would love to claim the same level of prestige as its rivals at The Crown, I would say their perceived lack of it is their biggest strength. This isn’t a watch you can use as currency in a pinch, or will let you skip past the velvet ropes at a VIP event. The mythology of Rolex has eclipsed its very utility so that it’s become almost an abstract entity, an avatar for luxury itself, whereas Omega remains grounded in old astronauts, sunburned Kiwi helmsmen, and humble family heirlooms.

I always had a feeling I’d one day have another Seamaster on my wrist. I wouldn’t have guessed it’d be a white dialed “Bond” diver. But there you have it. I’ve learned there are two words in this crazy hobby that you shouldn’t utter: “never” and “keeper.” And while I can’t condone shopping while on narcotic painkillers, sometimes the outcome is rewarding.