Bathys

Summer is more than here, it is in middle season territory and hopefully you've been able to enjoy yourself despite economic issues that have have put a damper in your summer recreational budget. Part of summer time fun is summer time gear. What better item to define this ideal (especially these days) than a value priced luxury watch born from the surf-rich shores of Hawaii. Enter one of my favorite sporty timepieces this year - the Bathys Benthic line. A watch available in various styles, pictured is the Benthic Automatic (a quartz version is also available) with a mother of pearl or solid color dial. Note that the watch is currently available with a rubber strap. The pictured metal bracelet is coming soon I hear - but I wanted to show you how pretty it will look.

The steel case (also available in black PVD) is just over 44mm wide with a rotating diver's bezel. The dial is mother of pearl, black, or orange. You'll appreciate the large sized numerals and hour indicators that are treated well with luminant. The hands are easy to read and in different shapes to assist with legibility. The automatic version has a Swiss ETA 2892 movement inside, and is possibly the best priced watch on the market with this high grade movement inside. With 200 meters of water resistance, this watch is truly a diver's buddy, a surfer's friend, or a night club companion. It comes in a rugged Pelican travel case and is well priced at just under $1,700 (likely a smidgen more with the metal bracelet when it arrives). The quartz version of the watch is less.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

The recent revival of Favre-Leuba watches also brought with it the V2 (version 2) of a favorite diving watch from years past - the Bathy. Last year saw the introduction of the new Favre Leuba Bathy watch using an in-house caliber FL 305 movement. Unique to the movement is the use of a beryllium copper membrane that functions as the mechanism behind a depth gauge, something that only highly exclusive mechanical diving watches possess.