There was tension in the air, you could smell the impending violence. I could cut the tension with a knife, which is fortuitus as I’m a Clearance Diver and carry at least three on my person at any one time.
I was told to always carry a pen, knife and a watch. These items along with my dive fins were never to be more than an arm’s length away, which they were not, strapped to either side of my backpack should one ever need to make a hasty exfill. The Q Store Chief was telling me that there were no ‘Citizen Aqualand’ dive watches left. I was due to be issued one, having just completed Royal Australian Navy Clearance Diver Basic Course (BCD 53 ‘The Hellfish’) I simply said. “What about the one on your wrist?”. I could hear ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ theme music like it was on blast, it rung in my ears. The thick black silence hung between the stores guy and me. He knew he’d pilfered the watch from the CD equipment list. And I knew. What was uncertain at this point was who was going to blink first. He was thinking about it, calculating my diminutive size and boyish good looks, against my seemingly false bravado. He was making the mistake a lot of people make, confusing my deference with weakness. I didn’t blame him, I’m not one of those dangerous looking men that pervade the military’s more specialist units. I had one ace up my sleeve though, the CD rate badge recently sewn high on the right arm of my blue mechanics overalls, the chosen daily rig of the Clearance Diving Branch. I’d only graduated the day before, and it now seemed to be the only thing I would be measured by in my up until now lacklustre career. A fact I was happy with. The thirty seconds felt like hours, as my eyes focused squarely on his shoulder mounted epilates.
He was a Chief Petty Officer, three whole ranks above my lowly Able Seaman rank. I was one second away from about-facing and saving myself from a fighting charge, the inevitable result of my current situation, and an outcome that would have been wise to avoid given it was my first day at AUSCDT ONE. My mentor had given me some sound advice only five hours earlier when answering my question about what I should do when I got to ‘The Teams’.
He said “Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut! It had taken me a mere three hours to fail that task. I’m a fucking idiot, I know, so don’t bother pointing that out. The chances of me receiving the watch I had devoted my life to obtaining were now slipping away in slow motion due in part to this clown wanting to erroneously issue himself the watch thereby imbuing himself via osmosis with some of the respect the time piece garnered. ‘Bugger it!’ I thought as I turned to walk away. “I don’t fancy ending up in the brig my first day. Then I heard him say, “Stop!”. “Great! It’s fucking on.” I thought to myself. “Come back here!”. ‘This is going to hurt’, I thought, the guy had twenty kilograms on me and fists the size of mallets. I’d been working on my thousand-yard stare but I’m sorry to say it never suited me and It only ever resulted in a smart arse smirk. A trait regularly got me in trouble when I finally made it to Australia’s counter terrorism unit TAG (east). He looked at me and silently unstrapped the watch from around his massive wrist and handed me the Citizen Aqualand dive watch. “You’ve earned it,” he said. “Now fuck off before I changed my mind.” I’d spent the better part of two years entering one of the world’s best military diving units and I wanted that watch and black beret more than anything in this world or the next. I gave him a wink and said, “Thanks Chief” the designation obviously NOT referring to his rank but rather a verbal derision. And that’s how I got my issued Citizen Aqualand Pro Diver with the rope like bezel.
Undisclosed location.
Time is relative they say, not to me it isn’t, I’m not claiming to be smarter than Einstein, I just believe time is a concrete metric by which to live one’s life. I turn my Bezel and count down getting ready in the morning, driving to a friend’s house, catching a flight. I even time brushing my teeth. I’m timing how long it takes to write this article. It may seem a tad platitudeness, but I live my life by the second hands melodic tick. Anyone who’s ever donned a mask and fins and dived beneath the ocean’s surface knows the obsession we ‘Bubble Heads’ have with tool watches. If there’s a new bit of kit in the scuba world, you can bet your last antique sovereign that every frogman on the face of the earth or on the floor of the ocean more specifically, has bought it and added it to their collection of time pieces. An interest that more than likely contributed to their divorce, such is the fiduciary burden it places on the bank balance. But what is “too much money” when you are holding a piece of engineering that measures the passing of time, a concept lousy with quantum fluctuations and theory bordering on philosophy.
Since humans first took to the sea, we have needed an accurate way of measuring time. Longitude requiring the accurate measurement of time to be precise. It has been theorised that Captain Bligh, having undergone a mutiny and cast adrift in a small rowing boat was able to navigate to safety with just a sextant and a quality pocket watch. The first real watch I bought was a Suunto Spyder, forgetting for a minute that watch nerds don’t count digital watches. I mention it only to admit I had no idea how to use it. You see I had been accepted to join the Navy and I spent the lead up months on my farm in South-West NSW Australia. Over 400km from the ocean. I spent the days timing my long runs down the paddock and up the giant hill to the white water tank overlooking our farmhouse. 2 hours a day for 8 weeks. My watch was the only company I had as I attempted to get fit enough to pass the CDAT Hell Week.
A week that went for fourteen days, in an agonising joke on the concept of time itself. I timed my sit ups, my push ups and my chin ups. I timed my breath holds in the small pool my family had gone into debt to buy. My first diving watch recording every painful day. The importance of this wrist born companion growing by the day as I memorised ‘Boyles Law’, “If the temperature remains constant, the volume of any given mass of gas remains inversely proportional to the absolute pressure.’ Depth, time and surface interval being measurements of time that were far more important than the street cred one amasses from wearing a Rolex Sub to the office each day (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). A faultless watch becoming the most important accessory in my life. Every time I looked down to check the time, I was closer to the date. The point of no return, the point when I was to become a Frogman or die trying.
Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Clearance Divers branch (CD).
It amazes me that more people don’t appreciate the exquisite engineering that is a wristwatch. We literally walk around with a man-made machine, nay a man-made miracle that depicts the passing chronological moments of the universe. There is nothing so important as time, people waste it, ignore it, lament it and greedily try to obtain more of it, but they can’t. All you can do is record it, fill the seconds with everything you can until it accumulates to “one crowded hour”. I have dedicated myself to filling each hour with as much life as I can, ironically it is only the prospect of this endeavour violently ceasing that gives those increments any existential meaning whatsoever.
There is nothing so valuable as time, making its measurement, the most important commodity in the world. I never take my watch off, not for sport, not for a shower and not for, well, you know. I feel naked without it. I can honestly say I’ve been in a few tight spots where a legit wrist roll was more helpful than a Glock! I’d leave home without a credit card but never without a watch. It’s the one thing that remains consistent in my life. A life measure in fractions of a second; the length of a fuse, the speed of a bullet or the duration of a dive, a surface interval being a literal matter of life and death.
I’ve had and lost two major relationships in my life (if you’re in the military and don’t have at least one divorce, you’re not trying hard enough). The first time I walked out the door with only my Rolex Deep Sea, Sea Dweller. The second iteration with my Panerai Sub Chrono Flyback and nothing else, just the clothes on my back and my watch… but that’s OK, Time heals all wounds. When I returned from Iraq in 2008, I bought a Benrus, Aquadive and a Synchron. Not so much for their collectability as their aesthetic coolness. Coming home from Afghanistan in 2020, a Tudor Black Bay Bronze. A little acknowledgement that my time on the earth continues to increase in length, recorded by a calendar that owes its value to the indices of time measurement.
Rolex Sea Dweller 43mm.
Panerai Luminor Submersible Flyback Chrono.
CWC RN Diver, RAN CD issue.
Many of my watches reside in a glass case now. I wouldn’t say they are ‘safe queens’, I wear them regularly. As they say, there’s no tow ball on a hearse, you can’t take them with you. Wear ‘em I say, even if they do acquire a scratch on the ceramic bezel. I don’t want to die without any scars, so why should my watches? The first time I drove down Route Irish in Baghdad I was wearing a Seiko Samurai, hoping to follow ‘The Way’ of my literary hero Miyamoto Musashi. I could feel the internal workings turning inside the case that was resting up against my tactical driving gloves desperately hoping no one noticed my hands shake. It was sealed at the back, open case and skeleton watches not having come into style yet.
Each second felt like an eternity as I griped the wheel of the B6 Land Rover clocking 180km/h on the melting black tarmac trying its hardest to hold back the desert. My heartbeat synchronised with the second hands, hoping like hell both would still be ticking tomorrow. After that tour I acquired my Rolex. I think maybe I was in an existential crisis of sorts and the steep price tag seemed like nothing in a world where the size of my bank account lost all meaning, given the limited time my chosen profession had seemed to guarantee. I’m pleased to say I survived and though my savings are a little deflated, I own a few kick arse watches!
My latest obsession is with watches that bare the mark of the Swedish diving company ‘Poseidon.’ I love the yellow insignia with its unmistakeable golden trident, a nod to those USA sub-aquatic supermen across the pond. The yellow strap, be it the ISOfrane rubber or NATO rigging straps with stainless steel hardware. Both reminding me of the 70’s diving equipment immortalised in the TV show, ‘Flipper’. When I was a kid, I dreamed of cruising around the ocean in a tin dingy solving mysteries and getting into adventures with my brothers and a sentient dolphin! Like any fledgling watch geek, I’ve largely left the digital world behind as my quantum chronological sickness has given way to the drug that is analogue mechanical watches, except for the methadone of G-Shocks when I’m really Jonesing for a fix.
My two prize possessions are the Clearance Diver ‘unit watches’ with the branch emblem emblazoned on the face of the DOXA and CWC respectively. The MK V diving helmet with the small ‘C’ underneath a constant reminder that they were ‘earned not issued’. There’s no pocket deep enough to purchase these puppies.
Undisclosed location.
It doesn’t matter what job I’m on, pirate hunting in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, dealing with drunk American oil barons in Nigeria or months into a gig in the Sandpit, every warzone, every AO or theatre of operation, I’m always looking at my watch. Counting the seconds till I can get home, miles to go before I sleep and always swimming back to shore, always trying to come home, always aware of the time. Every time I infill to a gig, I’m carrying at least three watches: A mid-level $5k mechanical quartz piece from one of the top ten manufacturers, because if you’re going to grab a beer in Dubai with lads more at home in the Mos Eisley cantina from Star Wars then in civi street, you better be rocking something special.
Lately it’s a Tudor Pelagos FXD. If I need to explain why ‘that watch’, then this website is not for you. In my carry-on backpack is a Suunto D9 or DX. Lately I’ve changed up to a Garmin ‘Decent’ or Fenix 7 PRO for the GPS feature. They are just a great mission watch, everything you need for navigation on land or at sea. And last but not least in my check through, a G-Shock ‘Frogman’ or ‘Rangeman’ because why? Because it’s a freck’en G-Shock that’s why!
What’s it like (to be a CD) I’m asked from some of my closer mates, well…
Feel strong do you? Feel tough, confident and unbeatable? Now hold your breath for thirty seconds. What’s changed? Maybe just a little; you’re not as assured. Keep holding it for another thirty . . . what’s that like? How’s your strength? Still there? No problem, hold it for another minute. Still able to throw that punch, score that try, sprint that 100 metres? What are you up to now – two minutes? Hold it for another minute; that’s three in total.
Where’s your courage now? How’s that confidence in your abilities going for you? Don’t panic, hold on for another thirty. Still able to throw that upper cut? Still strong, are we? I have an idea: just for kicks, hold that shit for another thirty, still riding that bull, flipping that motorbike. How’s that side- step going to look now? Still king of the octagon? Don’t breathe for another minute . . . you’re only just starting to know the importance of time and how it feels to be a clearance diver.
There is nothing more important than time, just ask a free-diver. It is the one enemy that remains undefeated. It’s batting 1000. Anyone who’s ever tangled with it has lost, Methuselah having given it a standing 8 count but ultimately loosing on points. The ability to measure time being the signal occupying obsession of my life; how quick you can shoot, run, swim, hold your breath, drive, and dive. It governs everything you do in the military. They say you’re either early or you’re late. “Timings men. Timings.” It was a constant refrain on the nearly five selection courses I attended trying to gain entry to this band of brothers. due mainly in part to my failing multiple times and having to do everything twice, because you guessed it. I always ran out of time…
- Hugh O'Brien
