In honor of Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, let’s play “find the fish.” Can’t find it in the watch? That is odd. Cuervo y Sobrinos named this new watch after the Manjuari – an ancient fish which goes by a lot of names and is better known as the Cuban Gar or Alligator Gar around these parts. If CyS would have called it the “Gar” (Gaaarrr!!) it would have sounded too much like a pirate watch. Wait a minute, isn’t this the brand that already has pirate themed watches? Ahem, click here. Manjuari has a much more Indian than Cuban sound to it right?

Anyhow, despite the excessively odd name (and scary looking pre-Cambrian fish), this watch is worth noticing as being a pretty excellent two time zone dive watch. Not a GMT exactly, but it has two time zones in 12 hour formats. This is good for people who like having two times at a glance, but aren’t comfy reading time in a 24 hour format. The watch also has a big date function which I like. The only thing missing is a day/night indicator for the second time zone which is generally used to indicate whether it is AM or PM in the other zone. Not sure why that got left out.

As a dive watch you’ll notice that the rotating bezel is actually a count-down bezel. Less common that the more traditional 60 minute timing bezels, they are used to count-down as opposed to counting up time. The dial of the watch has applied hour indicators a a nice fat applied Cuervo y Sobrinos logo as the 12 o’clock indicator. I rather like that element (robusto indeed). While not what I would call pretty, the dial is attractively functional and fits the them of the piece well, and comes in black or white. A nice touch is the blue ring around the second time zone which is matched by blue discs used for the big date indicators.

According to Cuervo y Sobrinos the case is a mixture of steel and titanium parts. They have done stuff like that before and the result is generally nice as the two metals have different finishes and colors. You’ll notice how the inner ring of the case (that extends in to the lugs) is titanium, while the top and bottom are polished steel. The case is 43mm wide and water resistant to 600 meters. On the back of the watch is said to be an engraving of the Manjuari fish – a good reason not to take your watch off.

Inside the watch is a Soprod caliber TT 651 automatic movement. I am sure that Cuervo y Sobrinos uses their own custom rotor. One thing I enjoy a great deal is the strap. CyS tends to impress me with their cool straps and this one is no exception. The strap comes in black or white, and is rubber. There are two strips of material as a red padding is used on the underside, and there is red stitching helping to hold it all together. Pretty cool. You could make an argument that Cuervo y Sobrinos didn’t need to give the Manjuari Diver the big date or second time zone complication, and that it would have been enough as a diver. That however would not be true to the brand as they like to add useful functions when it works, and I appreciate that. Price is in the 6,000 – 7,000 Swiss Franc region I am guessing.

See Cuervo Y Sobrinos on eBay here.

See Cuervo Y Sobrinos watches on Amazon here. [phpbay]cuervo y sobrinos, num, “”, “”[/phpbay]