It was early summer in 2014 and vacation was coming up. My wife was five
months pregnant so we decided to do something easy and relaxing and ended up
going to the Greek island Crete. My plan was to bring my new blue Squale
along but it was so polished without any marks at all and since I didn’t wanted
to risk scratching it I saw that as the perfect excuse to find myself an
appropriate vacation watch; a classic sign of the watch junkie syndrome.
The range of suitable used tool divers was of course scarce just because I
was in a hurry finding one. But then there was this watch that kept popping up
every once in a while that I first had discarded as a candidate, but as we got
closer and closer to departure it seemed like it was going to be my only option
so I finally decided to get it.
The watch was a blue TAG Heuer Aquaracer 500 quartz. I had had the automatic
version in the past which made an unexpectedly good impression on me. Being
cheaper because of the quartz movement, and having the rubber strap instead of
the bracelet were actually two things a saw as advantages and made me like this
watch even more than the automatic version. Details like the tapestry dial and
the rubber inlay in the bezel really made this watch stand out. The rubber was
both comfortable and good looking and even if it would never work as my
everyday office watch it really did a great job as a vacation/beach/pool/sports
watch. Just perfect!
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| #224 - The TAG Heuer Aquaracer 500, ref. WAJ1112. |
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| Resting on a can of Greek beer. |
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| Resting on a bottle of Desperados. Flashbacks to my younger days! |
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| Relaxing in the sun with some inspiring reading material. |
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| Found this guy lurking down in some shallow waters. |
The Aquaracer got to explore the Mediterranean Sea for a week and got to go
on a diving trip checking out old planes from WWII lying on the ocean floor.
But what it did best was acting as my beer buddy during the stay. It could
handle its liquor pretty good and never lost track of time even if I did
sometimes. The Aquaracer 500 once more proved it was a worthy watch that
deserves better credit than they are sometimes given.
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| Goodbye my summer love! |
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Flipper's Diary unless noted.
