El Buzo flash watch

The Diver watch project from Relojes Especiales, called ElBuzo is alive!!

Watch tools

Any watch will resist to my new tools! Santa bring me some high quality screwdrivers, finally I will be able to stop using my poor quality Chinese screwdrivers.

The Casio SNK-200 was my first watch that was opened by these new tools, I'm sting up the watch for my Christmas vacation in Mexico. I hope the watch will follow me in Cozumel, Playa del Carmen and some Cenotes in the Riviera Maya area :)

Casio ARW-320 in ALTI action

Today one of my Casio ARW 320 Alti-Depth has been at La Mola, a small mountain (around 1000m) close to our home. The altimeter marked 60m over the expected height... so I have to calibrate it.
Here you are a picture of the watch in it's "alti" funcion, the "depth" one will need to wait for a warmer season.

Casio ARW-320 family picture

Casio ARW-320 family picture.
Let me show you the ARW-320 I have at home. One of the nicest models of the japanese brand.

Vintage Diver watch - Relojes Especiales

Hi! I'm involved on an interesting project with the people from the Relojes Especiales watch forum. We are making a new watch! A diver watch with a vintage shape but modern specifications. 
All the design is new (except the movement) and all the design decisions are voted by the forum members.
I will post some information about this project, I think it is a very nice project and we will have a very nice watch :)
Here you are a picture of the winning case.

Casio GF-1 first Casio game watches

Few days ago 2 new watches arrived at home, very strange Casio model and 2 of them! 
The watches are the Casio GF-1, a basketball watch, quite difficult to see. It has few functions but when the right button is pressed a "fantastic" music sounds and a guy appears playing basket on he screen. Useful? NO! but nice&nerd :)
Unformtunatelly both LCD screen have some leaks, quite big bu not big enough to hide the important parts of the screen.
One of the watches had the PCB partially destroyed so I had to reconstruct it using thin cables... I know, welding is not for me but it works :)

Eating snakes?

I know this is not related to watches or diving... but not all days you see a Cobra snake on the restaurant's menu!
On a restaurant we ate few days ago there were 3 different types of snakes to eat, the most expensive one was the Cobra. For something close to 15 bucks you can eat the complete snake, including the blood, eyes, heart, etc. I like to taste all types or food, but to drink snake blood or to eat Cobra eyes is too much for me.

More Casios! TS-200 & W-780

Some days ago I bought a lot of Casio watches from the USA. Some of them were regular watches, standard watches that could be currently purchased in any watch shop or mall, but some of them were quite special.
There were two particular models I want to show you.
One is the watch I'm wearing right now, a TS-200, module 987 and Made in Japan P. It is a gadget-watch from the 90s, these kind of watches with useless functions that you only use the first days or weeks you own the watch :). This one has sunshine and sunset times, after setting up the watch with the GMT and place you live, the watch is able to tell you when the sun will rise and when will be the sunset, real use? I don't know! It also has temperature data from the last 30 hours.
Another watch I want to show is the well known W-780, module 549 and Japan H. This is the second unit I have of this model. It is a full steel Casio watch. On a revious post you can see more pictures of the other unit. This one has the LCD screen without any leak, so after a small clean & polish and a new band, this W-780 will have a lot of "new" years of life.

Seiko 7548-7000

Classic diver waiting for repair, a Seiko 7548-7000. I hope I will be able to make it work again but to find a new coil will be a huge job :(

Diving in Cala Llobeta (Tarragona)

12.08.2010 – Cala Llobeta (Tarragona)

The day after the snorkeling in Cala Llobeta, we've decided to go there to dive. We went alone, just my buddy and me, no divemaster on this dive. It was the first day we dive in that place so we were ready to being lost during the dive. We are not very experienced divers so even we have a compass and my buddy has a very good orientation sense we were sure we will be lost.

We followed the advices, and we fixed a 120º direction. We should find an arch, a small arch big enough to allow the pass of a diver. We did not find the arch at the go but we found it at the return, and we were able to took a very nice picture of some fishes inside the arch, it looks like an aquarium.

We also were able to take a picture of one of the ugliest fishes in our area :)

Watch case

I'm starting to order my watches, after long time having the watches over the table, on a wood boxes or in the drawer I'm placing the watches on a real box.
This is not the final layout, I need to place more watches that are under repair and some of the watches that are on the box will be sold, but it look nice... at least I like it :)

Casio steel case watches

 I don't forget the watches, but after 2 weeks on vacation diving nearly every day I've postponed most of my watch jobs :)
Here you are the last watch arrived at home, a real vintage Casio. Steel case, screw down base, mineral glass. Not chrome plated plastic, base with screws and plastic glass like the modern-vintage watches.
The watch is in quite good condition, it is a quite old watch, 100% made in japan.

Snorkelling in Cala Llobeta (Tarragona)

11.08.2010 – Cala Llobeta (Tarragona) - Snorkel

After some diving days, we've decided to go snorkeling to a new beach. Just a tour to know the beach and be able to go there to dive.

The day was good, not so much people there, few boats, no jetskis :), a good day for snorkeling.

It was a not stressing day, so after a complete hour of snorkeling the deepest dive was 5.8m and I was a total of 11 minutes and a half under the water. At least this is what my Casio SNK-200 said.

 Time enough to get a nice picture of an octopus protecting his cave.

 The picture of the snorkeling area is nice, very close to the harbor so the use of a signal buoy is more than recommended.

Diving in Calafat (Tarragona)

05.08.2010 – Cala Calafat (Tarragona)

This was an important day for me, the day after the steel bottle fall over my finger, depending on this dive there will be the end of the dive season or not...

We went to a small beach at the south of Tarragona. The beach is called Cala Calafat. The most difficult point on this dive was the steps we need do descend to arrive to the sand and the same number of steps we should ascend after the dive. Usually it ir not so difficult, just a little bit fatigating, but that day, due to my finger it was a quite hard job.

Hopefully the dive was good, 67 minutes of dive, max. depth of 12.7m and a temperature around 22ºC (still too cold).

Easy dive, not bad visibility, good divers... an important day for me. It was clear that won't be the last dive of the summer :)

And a nice pic of the dive preparation...

Diving accident in Tarragona

04.08.2010 – Escullera Port Tarragona

A dive I will not forget. The plan was to go to the end of Tarragona's Harbor, a place with a depth of around 30m.

The day started bad a 12 liter steel bottle fall over my foot, over my finger! Ahhhhhh! Yes! It was a painful experience, not a good beginning for a dive day. My finger became blue in seconds but some minutes after the pain was not so important to abort the dive, it seemed the finger was not broken so we went to dive.

The visibility was not so good, as usually on this area, and there was an important drift. Two bad friends for a paceful dive.

We started to go down without any problem but at the middle of the descent my buddy and me loose all the other divers! As already said, bad visibility and an important drift were the root cause of the lost. We tried to find the other people, the visibility was not so bad at 25m but we were not able to find the other people. Even we were able to continue the dive we decided to abort it and 15 minutes was the total dive time of such unforgettable day.

Hopefully the finger was not broken (at leas I think is not broken) so it was not the last dive of the summer :)

The picture is my finger the day after the accident, a little bit better than the previous day. Not a nice picture :( I post it in the smallest size...

Diving in Tarragona harbor

02.08.2010 – Escullera Port Esportiu (Tarragona)

The plan was to dive in Cap Salou, near Tarragona, but the visibility was not so good so we change our plans an go to dive to the Marina Harbour.

It was a long and easy dive. The max. Depth was 9.6m and we were 88 minutes under the water.

The visibility was not so good, but enough to see a lot of small fishes.

The temperature arrived to 22ºC quite cold to be beginning of August in Tarragona. This year the water is quite cold in this area, at least colder than other years.

The below picture show some nice blue small Dansel fishes (Castañuelas in Spanish) 

Vacation!

The vacation is over, so time to post some things after 15 days without Internet connection.
I will post explanations and pictures of some of the dives we did last 2 weeks in Tarragona. It is not the nicest place to dive, but a good place to make looong dives at low depths.

Casio EXP-10

The last watch arrived at home is a 90s Casio gadget-watch. It seems it will be the last watch before vacation, I will have to wait after vacation to see the Lorus that is on the way :(
The "new" Casio is an EXP-10, a Excercise Planner with a lot of functions I will never use :) The module is a 1183, you can download the instructions from the Casio web site by entering the module number or just following the link to Scribd.
The watch needs to be cleaned, polished and greased, I hope to have time during next two weeks.

Diving in Tarragona harbor

Last dive in Tarragona was not bad. The visibility is not our best friend in this area of the Mediterranean Sea as you can see on the first picture.
The dive was in the Tarragona harbor, the max. depth is around 20m but below 12m the visibility was awful so we did not dive below this depth.

The temperature was not high, around 22º, lower than other years by these dates.
Is this picture the definition of fun-dive? ;)

Poseidon watch

New watch at home, and this time a really new watch, not a vintage as usually. It is a watch made for Poseidon, a very well known dive equipment brand.
The watch is not a dive watch, according to Poseidon web site it is the watch used by divers when not dive, at least I will not use it for dive, it is a 100m water resistant watch.
The watch is huge, 46mm of diameter (excluding crown), 26mm black silicon strap.
The movement is a standard Miyota quartz movement, simple and functional. 

Casio W400 my 1st Marlin

Today a lot of "new" watches arrived at home. Let's start.
The first one is a Casio W400. A Marlin watch with resin case, screw down back and the well known 106 module (same as the classic H101).
The watch is in quite good condition, I don't know the age of the watch, but the production of this model started on the 1980!
To clean the watch I've opened the screw down back and removed the module.

 The "speaker" of the watch is not placed on the back as most of the Casio watches, it is at the front! See the 2 rectangular buzzers.

  Finally a picture of the nice screw down back.

Ikea watch

Here you are a very nice watch I bought years ago :)
It's from IKEA, a real must have for few Euros.
A good watch to remember the 80s Watches from the rap players! 

watches4sell

I'm trying to sell some of my watches. I bought some watch lots from ebay and other places just for one or two pieces of the lot. I don't want to keep that watches so I will try to sell them to be able to spend more money in new purchases... I know I won't become rich spending all the money on more watches, but for sure I will have more watches on my collection :)

Here you are the 1st post of my other blog:

Hi!This new blog will be used to show some of the watches I have on sale. I'm selling some of my watches through several webs.I'm trying to guide my collection to water related watches, so I have to sell some of the watches I have to be able to buy more of them. Let's see if I'm able to have 2 blogs :)

And here you are the url http://watches4sell.blogspot.com/

Casio G-Shock swimming pool shots

After a long weekend here you are two underwater pictures of my DW-5900. 
A very nice Casio G-Shock, that has all the needed functions except the light. Yes! this G doesn't has any light. It is the 1st multi dial G but it's dark in the night. Not a problem for these swimming pool shots.

LCD inverted dial

Anyone interested on inverting dials?
I did my first test using an old Casio A158w.
It is quite easy, just disassembly the module, remove the polarized layer at the front of the LCD screen and stick a new polarized layer turned 90 degrees.
I bought the layers in ebay for few USD.
A very easy mod to start. The next one will be to add oil to a watch, my first hydro!

Vostok Komandirskie

I'm checking the old posts of the blog and it seems I've never posted any picture of my Vostok watch!
It is a franken-watch. It is an automatic Vostok Komandirskie but the case is not from this watch.
Someone during the watch live changed the original chrome plated case to this gold plated one. The case was gold plated nut now it is only plated in few areas, most of the case has the base metal. That metal is polished and gives a quite good finish.
The movement is the "standard" and nearly unbreakable 2416 b. Very nice movement, maybe not so accurate, but maybe the hardest automatic watch  movement.

Dirtiest Casio G-Shock

See what I found on a Casio G-Shock I get from an ebay auction. 
I thought it was impossible to have so much dirt on a single watch! Did the previous owner ever cleaned the watch? I don't thin so :(

Is a Jump hour a digital watch?

Another digital watch? 
It is a digital watch since the time is given by digits but it doesn't have LCD or LED screen. Does it have battery? NO! It is a hand wind movement!
So, a digital hand wind watch and Swiss made. What else?
This kind of watches are known as "jump hour". Lucerne has a lot of nice jump hour watches but several brands did these special digital watches "some" years ago..
I'm waiting for 2 more Lucerne jump hour watches from an ebay auction. I will show them here as soon as they arrive.

Seiko and Casio news

Bad and good news this weekend. First of all bad news :(
The rubber band o my Alba diving watch was broken while sleeping. Too old rubber. I know it will be nearly impossible to find a new original band for this watch.
Now the good news. I've won a Casio Marlin W 400 on ebay. Now I have to wait some days to see how is the swordfish. I hope a little clean will be enough to have a real Marlin (screw down back) on may wrist.

Alba Seiko under water

My Alba-Seiko watch passed the first "dive" on the swimming pool :)
The watch reached the Xtreme depth of 1.7m without problems. 
I hope to test the watch soon on a real dive.

Casio AWR-320 problems

My second Casio ARW-320 has a problem. After 4 minutes the analogue module stops. 
The problem is in one of the small plastic wheels. It has a broken tooth. I've tried to put the tooth in the correct place but it was broken, so right now the ARW has a missing tooth but works :)
I'm checking the accuracy of the watch. With a missing tooth seems clear that it will loose some time. The first 2 hours it loose 2 minutes and 40 seconds, a little bit more than 30 minutes per day. It is not a good accuracy, but it works more than 4 minutes ;)
I will try to look for an old destroyed ARW-320 in order to get a good wheel.

Second Casio ARW-32'0 at home

Today I've received my second Casio ARW-320! I thought only one on my box was not enough so I've look for another one :)
This second watch is not working properly. The digital module seems to work great, but the analog module doesn't run. The second hand seems to move but it does not advance, so any other hand is moving. 
I hope a good clean of the module will solve the problem. If at the end I'm not able to solve the problem I will have a lot of spares for my working ARW-320. 
Both are the orange button version... so now I need the yellow version one :)

Casio G-Shock DW-5900

Here you are some pictures of the cleaned Casio DW-5900. 
It is the 1st G-Shock with the 3 small graphic sub-dials, released on the 1990.
This watch doesn't have light, quite strange on a G. It has 5 alarms, stopwatch and timer. As all G's it's 200m water resistant.
It is one of the classic G-Shocks, and this unit is in pretty good condition. For sure forgotten on a drawer for long time.
Not only is a special watch due to the 3 sub-dials, it is also one of the watches used on a NASA space mission. The linked picture shows this watch on the left hand of the left astronaut. 
 According to Wikipedia is a NASA Flight-Qualified watch!