My old Seiko Diver

The 6309 Diver from the Seiko catalog. 
This is what it looked like brand new.

Back about August 1982, I was walking through the Sears store at LaCumbre Plaza in Santa Barbara when I spied a diver-style Seiko watch in the display counter with a sign that announced "20% off all Seiko Watches." My diver-style Timex watch had gone missing on a recent trip to San Diego and I needed a replacement.  I admired the style and ruggedness of the watch.  It had heft.  At 150-meter water resistance, with bi-directional rotating bezel and solid rubber strap, the Seiko Model 6309 watch certainly was an appropriate accessory for the life aquatic that I was beginning to craft.  While it would be another two years before I became scuba certified, I has started snorkeling in the shallow inner Mohawk Reef via the Coastal Access path and stairs at Mesa Lane.  

Rounding out my education as a neophyte waterman, I had also purchased a Windsurfer Sport, started crewing on a sailboat for the Wet Wednesday races at the Santa Barbara Yacht Club, and was learning to sail Victory 21's at the Santa Barbara Sailing School. 

Jimmy Rown and I on board Sea Ventures circa 1986. 
Notice the Seiko on my left wrist.

In July 1984, strapped to my left wrist during the pool and ocean dives for my PADI Basic Diver certification at UCSB, the watch fulfilled its destiny as a dive watch.  Little did I know that it would be present for the next 30+ years on nearly every one of the tens of hundreds dives.  I have other dive watches, a pretty modest collection in fact, but the old Seiko is the one I dive with. 

Nearly four decades later, the watch is showing its age due to the passage of time and loving use, and many dives but still works well and keeps good time--kind of like its owner. The luminescent paint on the face is worn and no longer luminesces.  I doubt it ever will, even if staked out and exposed to the blazing sun of a Caribbean beach.  The time markings and numbers on bi-direction bezel are worn.  The bezel is still tight, taking some effort to rotate.  It still resonates with its distinctive clicking.  I wonder how many revolutions it has made to mark the start of descent time or as a means to alleviate my boredom.  The luminescent inset on the triangle reference index was lost many years ago.  Back in the 1990s when I tried to get the bezel replaced, I was told the parts were not available.  I can’t say how many times the strap has been replaced.  I try to use authentic Seiko straps, but availability is sometimes limited (dock strike in Yokohama or a world shortage of quality rubber was the usual reasons given by watch vendors). 

My Seike Model 6309--been with me for 36 yeats

I will keep using the watch.  After all, it is my oldest dive buddy and the one piece of original equipment I still own.  Actually, that is not accurate.  I still have my Conshelf 14 regulator too.  You dance with the one that brung ya.  While dive computers have replaced the need for dive watches and tables to figure a diver’s residual nitrogen time, repetitive group, and no decompression limits, it is a comfortable companion. I see that after market bezels are now available.  Who knows, maybe I will give it a refurbishment as a reward for so many years of faithful service.