Monday 4 May 2015

Phi Phi Don Island : Greens Everywhere

So here I am in Phi Phi Don Island for some time-alone with the missus. We have a nice suite by the beach, the kids are at home in KL, and it has been a couple of days of sun, sea and beach. And more days to follow suite - sweet!

If any of you readers are here at this time too, give me a holler vide the PM or e-mail, and we could have drinks at the pubs by the beach. One round of Chiang Beer on me, at the very least.


Being a watch blog, I'm sure that you're asking what watch have I taken to follow me on this trip. Most of my collection are diver watches, so I am spoilt for the choice really.

However, you may well be surprised by the choice I made- Casio G-Shock Rangeman Military Spec. I actually planned to bring the Tudor Pelagos being a versatile daily wear of my personal favourite these days.

However, the Rangeman arrived vide courier from United States just before we were to depart; and I noted that the battery was low on the watch. The battery was re-chargeable vide solar power, and the beach was all about worshipping the sun after all. Plus the Rangeman was a Multiband 6 watch, so it would be easier not to change the timezone to and fro, as the time would be automatically updated when the watch senses the time calibration signals from any of the 6 atomic time-keeping stations in the world.

(NB : Upon arrival, I noticed that the time had not automatically changed and further Googling revealed that the function works when you were in one of the countries where the stations were located i.e. Japan, China, UK, Germany and USA. Anywhere else, you have to manually set the change in home city. But the good thing was, it also informed the wearer on the sunrise and sunset times of the area- and going by what I have seen, was pretty accurate.)



2 days of snorkelling had the watch on Full battery charge, which would power the watch for a full 7 months assuming that there was no further exposure to sunlight. Cool, right? And because it was shock- and mud-resistant, I would have no worries about the need to baby the watch. The built-in digital compass was spot-on, thermometer was useful, altimeter was used during a spot of rock-climbing, while the barometer predicted no rain for these few days and surprise, surprise, it had been sunny all the while.

Even my fellow snorkelling partners remarked that it was a very handsome piece.

My only complain, if any, was that I had chosen the military spec with blacked-out negative display, which would be a very useful feature so that you could remain hidden during covert missions. However, for normal use, it meant that you have to tilt the dial to a direct angle before you could read the time properly. I would prefer a normal display actually, but with the same military green case.


I also brought along the Submariner Classic as a fellow reader had asked if I was interested to trade with his Submariner Hulk. He wrote to me vide PM and e-mail a couple of days ago, and we worked out the mechanism towards the swap with the following parameters :

- both Subs were of acceptable presentation to each other;
- the RSC verification cost would be shared between both parties;
- we could meet either in Bangkok (where he was on holiday) or KL (where I was located).

Personally, I prefer the Submariner Hulk but it was not easy to get a piece in ADs, and the Hulk was always at a premium. So, when another reader offered me his pre-owned Submariner Classic back in KL, I took up his offer and voila, now another reader has offered to swap the Classic for his Hulk. It has all worked out nicely for me.


So, you would gauge why I had written the title as Greens Everywhere. The Casio Rangeman Military Spec was a green piece, and the Rolex Submariner Hulk was another green piece. So... greens everywhere, get it?

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