DOXA's Spirit of Adventure
DOXA has always been a watch built for a purpose. Even in its infancy, the brand was focused on making watches that could go where others couldn’t, such as the very earliest water-resistant timepieces from the 1940s and 50s that were discussed here. Running through the brand’s DNA is the motto, coined by CEO Jan Edöcs, that DOXA “stays in or around the water”. From the 1950s onwards, waterproof watches became so much more than simple time-telling instruments; they were tools of the trade for professional divers. Whether military combat swimmers, commercial divers or those looking to explore unchartered realms of our aquatic plane, they could rest assured that the DOXA on their wrist would keep telling the time no matter how dangerous the situation got.
The SUB 300T was the watch of choice for the Swiss Diving Commandos. Whilst Switzerland has a reputation as a quiet and reserved nation, its combat swimmers were some of the fiercest and finest of the 20th century. It had a particularly good navy commando unit that was responsible for covert underwater demolition missions. In the late 1960s the divers were issued DOXA SUB underwater 300Ts, with the signature orange dials and no-deco bezels. The specialist unit was responsible for entering enemy territory, placing explosives and detonating them before returning undetected. A co-ordinated mission such as this requires precise timekeeping and the DOXA SUB 300T was the perfect choice. The watch was also highly legible for the divers, who’s timed-to-the-second manoeuvres, had to be monitored closely and with ease.
Jarrod Jablonski is a professional diver with a wealth of diving and entrepreneurial experience. Jablonski has a track record of running successful dive-related businesses including his latest, Deep Dive Dubai, the world’s deepest diving pool. He is also a record-setting cave diver, with numerous accolades to his name including the longest penetration on a deep cave when he and his dive partner explored the "Q" tunnel of Wakulla Springs at a distance of 7900 meters in 2008; a record that still stands to this day. Jablonski always straps a DOXA onto his wrist.
When it comes to exploring, there are number of adventurers that choose a DOXA. We recently discussed this with Barna Takats, who whether on Safari in Africa, or on one of his diving trips to swim with killer whales in Norway or nature dives in California, he is never without his DOXA SUB. He was inspired to get his DOXA by some of his heroes: “I fell in love with the whole history of the DOXA SUB 300T, its place on the wrist of the hero of my favorite books by Clive Cussler, and how it was developed for use with the Swiss Commandos.”
Dirk Pitt appears as the main character in the novels of Clive Cussler. What Pitt and Cussler have in common is the fact that both wear orange dial DOXA SUB dive watches. Whilst the former is a work of fiction, the latter chose to endow his hero with a DOXA watch like the one he himself wore for many years since being given the timepiece in the late 1960s. Although originally a marketing executive, Cussler’s passion was for writing and so to allow himself more time to work on his novels, he took a job managing a dive shop. A keen diver, the part-time job allowed him the much-needed time to hone his craft. As soon as his first book was completed and he had secured a publishing deal, he chose to leave the dive shop. As a leaving gift, the shop owner gifted him a DOXA SUB 300T with orange dial. The rest is literary history!
Dirk Pitt, named after Cussler’s son, is the protagonist of over twenty novels and is regarded as something of an aquatic James Bond. A daring hero, with a number of sub-aquatic adventures under his diving belt and a penchant for the finer things in life, including an impressive collection of classic cars. Pitt’s career began in the United States Air Force, where he served in the Vietnam war and was one of the service’s star pilots. Following his distinguished career in the Air Force, he took up a role at the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) as a marine engineer before ultimately becoming head of the agency.
Being Head of NUMA didn’t stop Pitt, however, from taking part in aquatic adventures and when above or below the waves, he always wore his trusty orange dial SUB. Interestingly, at the time that Cussler was gifted his DOXA, the US distributor of DOXA was Aqua Lung US Divers and so the watch featured the company’s logo on the dial. Due to the success of the Pitt novels, Cussler went on to set up his own foundation called NUMA, named after the fictional organisation in the Cussler novels, that explored shipwrecks and always wore an orange dial DOXA.
The first time that Pitt’s DOXA is mentioned is in the second book in the series, Iceberg. "The depth gauge read ninety feet and the orange dial on the DOXA diving watch notified him that he had been down two minutes." Make sure you read the rest of the book to find out what happens next!
So, whether being worn in the field by commandos on clandestine missions, on the wrist of a sub-aquatic fictional hero, in the sea around incredible killer whales or thousands of meters below ground in dangerous caves, DOXA is there and never far away from the water. This sense of adventure runs through the entire range of DOXA timepieces. Which one will you pick and what kind of adventure will you undertake with it on your wrist?
