A Pack of Wolves Pt. III
Review of the Zodiac Super Sea Wolf ZO9209
A Man and His First (Real) Watch
The story of my first real watch purchase is actually a story about my relationship with time. Or rather, my perception of that relationship, because fundamentally, we all have the same connection to time. A friend of mine likes to cite his “lack of time” as the central argument for his inability to get ahead in life – to which I retort that he has the same number of hours in a day as every human who has ever existed. This is obviously true for everyone and thus, our perception of time and how we operate within its confines profoundly shapes who we are.
I am at once driven, organized, scheduled but also passive, relaxed, tranquil. I need to be aware of time but I don’t always like to be. For years I felt as if a watch would somehow firmly pull me into the realm of the hyper-stressed and always hurried corporate man. The kind of man I have worked for years to avoid turning into. I want to be the kind of person who can naturally wake up before the sun and go for an ocean swim. I want to spend unscheduled minutes tossing a football with my kids. I want to drink a glass of wine on the back porch with my wife while enjoying our grazing goats and foraging chickens, and not think about how many more minutes there are until dinner needs prepping or kids need bathing. And so, to this end, I have eschewed wearing a watch for years.
Still, I am constantly aware of time. I get up at 4am to the tune of an alarm clock, I have an hour to drink my morning coffee and read, and then I have an hour to workout. That’s a workout, I might add, that nearly always has a time domain component. I need to wake the kids at 6am and then help shuttle them out the door by 6:45. And thus my days normally progress, racing the clock, driving to work (on time!), getting things done, striving for the weekend when I can focus less on the hour of the day. To quote Kurt Vonnegut, “so it goes.”
Recently, I realized in this context that though I may want to pretend like I am somehow independent of time, I am in fact as rigidly scheduled as nearly any of my peers. I further recognized that not only was my life scheduled, but my source of checking how far my particular location on earth had rotated for that day was…my phone. I have worked for years to excise needless technological inputs from my life. That is a story for another time, but an important point nonetheless because I realized that a huge part of why I check my phone so often, is to check the time. A check which leads to viewing endless and seemingly urgent notifications that my phone silently screams to me.
All that to say that I knew it was time to get a watch. I also felt like I had progressed to a point in life where something beyond a basic $20 Timex was beyond appropriate.
Now, if you’re reading this, you surely know who Jason is, and I have the privilege of calling him a friend. As he’s delved ever deeper into his watch journey, he has spread the gospel of horology far and wide and I slowly but surely became ensnared in his call. And finally, one day, we went shopping for my first real timepiece.
“It really is all my fault.”
We looked at numerous pieces. We saw Seiko Prospex, Rado Captain Cook, Bulova Chronograph A, Longines V.H.P, and on and on. My mind started to spin, I was overwhelmed with the sheer volume of choices. I liked most of them; I didn’t love any of them.
But then, I saw it - the Zodiac ZO9209.
It was the only Zodiac model they had in the case and I eagerly asked to try it on. Once I had it on my wrist and I could soak in the look, the feel, and the obvious quality I knew it was the one. Soon after purchasing, Jason helped me swap out the bracelet for a NATO strap, something a little more in keeping with my active lifestyle.
“True friends help their friends save bracelets.”
The watch has enough style that I’ve felt confident wearing it out on a date night with my wife. I joke with her that I now know what it feels like to be beautiful because I’ve caught more than a few people looking in my direction. They were looking at my wrist of course. At the same time, this watch is plenty rugged and I have worn it while working out at my home gym, hiking in the Appalachian Mountains, working in the garden, gathering eggs from the chicken coop, and taking my paddleboard out on the ocean.
I recently took it with me to Maine and enjoyed riding some waves in the cold surf up there with my Zodiac on my wrist. A few weeks from now I’ll be diving in the Bahamas looking for sharks and pelagic species on the reef edges while wearing this piece. I’ll be sure to report back to Jason after those experiences and update him on the watch’s performance.
Speaking of diving, the discovery of the heritage of Zodiac further stoked the fires of my rapidly growing love affair with this watch. I honestly bought the watch based purely on look and feel. While I don’t regret basing my decision thusly, I anticipate future purchases will include some research into the brand itself. That being said, I continue to be amazed at the deep history of the Super Sea Wolf, especially in the world of diving. Part of me wants to believe that I didn’t stumble into the brand based on luck. Instead, the mystical side of me wonders if their rich underwater history came through in the design and spoke to my natural affinity for the ocean.
My Zodiac is quickly growing on me. I’ve had this piece for about 6 weeks now and have worn it daily with the gray NATO strap. My previous anxiety related to wearing a timepiece and somehow tying myself more firmly to time has given way to great comfort and enjoyment in the pride of Zodiac ownership. Even after less than two months of having possession there is something special about putting it on in the morning. Something that parallels my 4am coffee in the sense that I feel a familiar comfort and relief. When I start my day out with my Super Sea Wolf on my wrist I have the assurance that I am rightly connected. I feel a deeper positive awareness of my place in the universe and I don’t mean that hyperbolically. Whereas checking time on my phone pulled me out of the present moment and thrust me into the faux urgency of app notifications and text messages, my Super Sea Wolf does the opposite. There it sits, on my wrist, faithfully counting off the seconds in a real and physical way, becoming a close ally and dare I say, friend in my journey of life. A journey which is in many ways, a journey through time.
And lastly, if I can continue the beverage metaphor, I feel about this watch the way I feel about my favorite craft beer – I fall more in love with it each and every time I experience it.
