Imagine you’re stranded on an uninhabited island. You don’t know when help will arrive, or if it ever will, but you’ve got the basics of survival down. There’s enough water to sustain you. You have some form of shelter. Eating means embracing your natural instincts and hunting and foraging.
The US luxury replica watches on your wrist during this imaginative ordeal? That’s your “desert island watch.” Though I have to note, it should probably be called the “deserted island watch,” unless you really are on island that hosts a desert climate.
This thought exercise seems to crop up time and again in high quality fake watches enthusiast circles (and other hobbyist circles, as well). The question, “What watch would you bring if you were stranded on an island?” is a philosophical thought exercise to not only pare down a watch collection to just one, but an examination of the way we enjoy Swiss made replica watches. It’s about ourselves as much as it’s about the watch.
I wanted to add some real-world context to the conversation the next time I’m sitting around a table with Swiss movements copy watches buddies and the “desert island” watch conversation comes up. How? By actually experiencing it.
The first time I heard about the Dry Tortugas was from an article by Justin Couture on his blog, The Wristorian. The Dry Tortugas are a small group of islands about 70 miles to the west of Key West, Florida. Fort Jefferson, built in 1861, stands on the primary key. The fort and its armaments were set up to protect and control the popular shipping lane through the Gulf of Mexico, but in 1935 Fort Jefferson was designated a national monument and protected by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Today it’s the most remote national park in the United States.
The name Dry Tortugas comes from the fact that there is no freshwater on the island. Visitors must bring everything they need to the island, including potable water. Camping is allowed, but it’s pack-in, pack-out. There are no resources on the island aside from a few stationary grills and leftover hard storage bins to keep rats from eating the rations you’ve packed. In case of a serious emergency, there’s a VHF radio tuned-in to channel 16 (the international distress frequency) on the island that one can use to call for help. A small number of park rangers from the National Park Service look after Fort Jefferson, as well.
I applied for a permit to camp at the Dry Tortugas and waited until my number came up. It typically books out up to six months in advance. Every day a ferry from Key West visits the island and allows day-trippers a few hours to walk around Fort Jefferson. The boat brings a small number of campers, too. And once the day trippers leave after lunch, the campers (about eight total) are the only people on the island.
While I waited for a slot, I needed to choose a watch to bring to this remote, uninhabited island. I thought about it for awhile, and in the end, I chose 1:1 AAA fake Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Diver watches to bring with me as my one, do-it-all, “desert island watch.” Not my usual pick at all. So why’d I go with something so far outside my horological comfort zone? Well, I’m more than familiar enough with tool cheap replica watches. I’ve never really had the chance to experience the hype-watch life. And I figured that if this whole trip went awry, at least I’d at least I’d have the chance to. Plus, this particular hype-watch is kind of made for a deserted island, even if almost nobody ever uses it that way. That is, nobody but me.
This reference (15720ST) of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Diver replica watches for sale retailed for $25,400 when it was brand-new. Now? People want one so bad they’re paying around $40,000 on the secondary market. It’s the kind of watch where you need to have some sort of relationship with a boutique to purchase, and everyone else pays a ludicrous premium. It’s the very definition of a hype-watch, and my guess is that most people that buy one aren’t buying it for the 300m water resistance or the in-house caliber 4308. It’s got the horological chops; it’s an AP, after all. The second it was in my hand I could feel the incredible build quality. For many folks, this is grail best fake watches. For me, it was an experiment to see if I could live up to the image it projects.
The first morning of our two days on the island, it’s the crack of dawn on Key West when I arrive at the ferry taking us to the Dry Tortugas with my girlfriend. Since the Dry Tortugas is a national park, they don’t allow guns, weapons, explosives, etc. We submit our bags to the guards to be searched. They don’t find anything questionable, but little do they know that I actually am packing serious heat – it’s just on my wrist.
I’m in full-on Florida mode with my Panama hat, a Hawaiian shirt, and some sunglasses with serious character. This ensemble is topped off by the Swiss wholesale replica Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Diver watches. Wearing a $40,000 watch and heading to an uninhabited island feels fantastic. There’s no cell service out there and absolutely no way for anyone to contact me.
We make landfall. After a quick brief from the National Park Service we set up the campsite. We’ve got plenty of water, a medical kit, and enough gear to hopefully catch dinner. We have back-up food, just in case. After our tent is set up and our food is in the hard bins, we start exploring the island. I’m loving it. It’s not exactly the deserted island I had in mind, however, with a ton of sunscreen-laden fanny-packers all staring at maps of the island.
A seaplane arrives and I decide that next time, I’m ponying up for the seaplane to take me out here. Maybe the AP is giving me delusions of monetary grandeur. Talk about lifestyle inflation.
Around noon, I run into my first major decision regarding my “desert island watch.” I had vowed not to take off the super clone watches store site, but I have to cut up some ripe squid into strips for fishing. It means reaching into a bag of lukewarm squid meat. Surely it would expose my wrist to some wonderful cephalopod juice. Do I really want my nice and shiny AP doused in mollusk-flavored water?
Hmm. Whatever.
The fish aren’t going to catch themselves, and we need to eat.
The strap is rubber, anyway, right? It’ll come right off.
The day-trippers are back on the boat at two, and all of a sudden the island is quiet. I’m finally starting to feel like I’m on a deserted island out in the middle of nowhere. That also means there’s no one around to compliment me on the AP I have on my wrist. The whole day no one even noticed. I’m not totally surprised, and anyway this one’s really for me. A hurricane could wipe us out, the boat might sink and never return, a shark might get me, you name it. There are a million ways to die on a remote island, but at least I’d be wearing this 2021 replica watches shop. Someone might say you should choose a watch that would work well for survival. But the truth of the matter is that a watch won’t play a part in the whole thing, so you might as well go out with a bang.
If you’re wearing best quality Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore fake watches on a deserted island and no one is around to gawk at it … is it even the hype-watch you thought it was? I’m not so sure. I’m starting to think a lot of the fun about wearing a Royal Oak has to do with projecting a certain image.
We spot a Great Barracuda under the dock where we’re fishing. It keeps picking off the fish we hook before we can reel them in. The Tax Man is always gonna get his share, I suppose.
Nothing but little dock snapper are biting and they’re not big enough to keep. Are we going to be able to eat? If I saw someone wearing Audemars Piguet Royal Oak replica watches for men – even an Offshore – I might think they’re some city-slicker with more money than guts who doesn’t know a snapper from a grouper and can’t bait a hook and catch dinner. I don’t want to be that guy.
I’m not in love with this top fake watches. I’m nervous about scratching it up. It has a nice coating of sand and squid juice on it already, and now there’s some fish slime in the mix from unhooking these little snapper.
Time for some snorkeling and a walk around the fort. I will say, the top quality replica Audemars Piguet Offshore Diver watches is very legible underwater. It’s not so bad in that regard. As a tool watch, it does actually work. Forget about setting the bezel, though.
I see a few tarpon cruising the shallows for baitfish. These things are huge and fast. It’s an amazing sight to see. Finally, the slot snapper start biting and we catch something for dinner, a sizable mangrove snapper. We cook it up and eat under a palm tree, with a nice cool ocean breeze. The only sound around is the lapping waves and the charcoal fire dying down.
There’s no better feeling than eating freshly caught fish, drinking a nice island lager, and knowing that not a single soul can bother you. I’m starting to understand the Royal Oak life. I didn’t get it before, but now it’s hitting just right. It was in this moment that I halfway came around to the fake watches wholesale shop. It still isn’t for me, at all, but I finally see – and even embrace – the appeal.
It’s lights out. Bedtime. It’s raining hard and the palm tree keeps smacking the tent and waking me up. The thunder and rain are really, really nice, though. We don’t get these kinds of storms outside of the tropics.
Around midnight I wake up and want to know what time it is, so I check my wrist. Nothing. Can’t see a damn thing. The lume died out. If sub-$1,000 luxury Swiss replica watches can get this right, then surely a Royal Oak Offshore can. But I supposed most people aren’t buying these to check the time at night, anyway.
I can get used to this life. Even when it’s overcast it’s beautiful.
We wake up around eight on day two. It’s cloudy and grey as remnants from the storm blow out, but good weather is on the way. I wake up and the first thing I do is check my 1:1 quality fake watches for the time. Looking good. I fry up some eggs and Spam. I brought the Spam with me to pay homage to the food that kept bellies full during years of hardship in the South Pacific.
By this point, I’ve seen every inch of the island, so I take another dip and wet a line again, just for fun. I’ll be heading back soon.
It’s 10 when the boat pulls in and the day-trippers flood the island.
I pack up all the gear and just hang around until the boat’s ready to go. I secretly wish the boat had sunk on the way here (with everyone surviving, of course) and we got stranded an extra day. I’m not ready to go back just yet. I’m just getting used to the deserted island life. It isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s great. Give me a satellite phone and some Wi-Fi and I’m set. I could stay here for a long, long while.
I’m back at the Key West Ferry Terminal and I already miss that tiny sliver of sand in the Caribbean. I had come to test out my “desert island watch,” but I found instead that it’s a much better piece to have at a bar with a bunch of replica watches paypal friends than it is to actually carry out. Some things, I’ve learned, are better to simply theorize about than to actually do. In the real world, the “desert island watch” thing doesn’t really matter.
In the end, I think the best thing about the “desert island watch” experiment was being on the island.