TechnoMarine Abyss

Dive watches come in all shapes and sizes, and are available at all different price points. Most watches with a uni-directional rotating bezel and the ability to fit over a wetsuit claim more water resistance then most of us will ever need: usually around 100-200 meters. But the watches I cover in this article go way deeper than your typical diver; deeper than the current 1,220 meter Rolex Sea Dweller; deeper, even, than the Breitling Steelfish which maxes out at a comparably casual 2,000 meters. There are a handful of watches out there that can literally scrape the bottom of the deepest known parts of the ocean, and I call these watches "extreme divers".

The TechnoMarine Abyss

First up is the TechnoMarine Abyss. This avant-garde brand throws down an interesting looking watch that is ready to dive. The Abyss is a 42.5mm quartz-powered stainless steel dive watch which, at $650, represents the cheapest of the extreme divers. Although suspiciously light on details, TechnoMarine claims the Abyss can withstand 12,000 meters of water, or about 39,600 feet, which is about as deep as deep gets. This model comes in a choice of dial colors (blue, black, orange, silver, and yellow), and is outfitted with a mineral crystal. Something that sets the Abyss apart from the other extreme divers is the day of the week in additional to the date. Like all the extreme divers, the case of the Abyss is filled with silicone oil to keep the pressure equalized, and it has a very prominent air bubble which will undoubtedly draw bewildered looks and plenty of questions from perfect strangers.

There isn't a whole lot of information available on the new TechnoMarine ceramic ladies' watches, but here's what I know so far:

Although TechnoMarine is not the first to create a ceramic watch, they are the first to add color. Apparently, the process of making a ceramic watch is such that it's very tricky to add color, and therefore all previous ceramic watches have been white, black or gray. TechnoMarine has seemingly mastered the process, however, as they now offer some very cool looking new ladies' watches in blue, baby blue, pink, brown, black, white, and orange.

This isn't ceramic like so many saucers we've all dropped and broken over the years. These watches are constructed out of industrial strength ceramic formulated from a combination of two different types of metal powers, extremely high temperatures, and very high pressure. The result is a substance that is apparently about as hard as substances get (not counting diamonds), and is used to protect spacecraft from the massively high temperatures they experience while reentering the earth's atmosphere. If it's good enough for the Space Shuttle, it's probably good enough for a chronograph.