The bezel that tells you when to come up
By Tom Hargreaves, Falmouth, Cornwall ·
What I like about Doxa is that the bezel on the Sub 300T actually does a job. The outer ring is your elapsed time, and the inner scale is a no-decompression table based on the US Navy tables: line up your depth in feet or metres and it tells you how long you can stay down without needing stops. In the days before everyone had a dive computer on their wrist, that was serious kit. It's still a nice thing to have as a backup, and I'm a big believer in backups.
Then there's the orange dial. The Sub was launched in 1967 and Doxa picked orange because, under water, it's the colour that stays readable longest as the light drops off. I've had people on courses who can't read a white dial in the murk off the Manacles on an overcast day, and orange is a different story. Jacques Cousteau's divers wore them, and Clive Cussler had Dirk Pitt wear one in the novels, which is how a lot of people my age first heard of the brand.
Specs: 42.5 mm cushion case, 13.4 mm thick, 20 mm lugs, closed back, rated to 1,200 m with a helium release valve. The helium valve is completely pointless for anybody who isn't doing saturation work, but it's there. ETA 2824-2 inside, 38 hours. Standard stuff, easy to service anywhere.
The bracelet is the beads-of-rice style and it's comfy, but the clasp on these isn't the most sophisticated thing in the world. Check the extension before you buy if you wear a wetsuit.
Price is $2,390 to $2,490. Not cheap for an ETA watch, but you're paying for a case shape and a bezel that are genuinely useful. I'd happily wear one on the boat every day.
One more thing in its favour. Because the 2824-2 is about the most common automatic movement there is, any watchmaker in any port town can service it, and parts cost buttons. When you live somewhere like Falmouth, where the nearest specialist is a fair drive, that matters more than a fancy in-house calibre with a six-week wait at the factory. I'd take boring and fixable over clever and stuck in a post bag. Every time.
Anyway. The shape is a bit much at a dinner party, mind, and the cushion case doesn't slide under a shirt cuff at all. My van has more subtle paintwork.