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Freestyle Tide 3.0 Watch
By ccrossen | July 7, 2008
I am kindof a low-tech guy when it comes to surfing. Sure, I like to travel with as many boards as possible, but beyond boards, leashes, wax, shorts, and a ding kit, that’s about it. This said, most breaks depend on specific tides and tidal heights for them to start breaking or keep breaking, or break well. Often, for example, a place will start breaking an hour before low-low tide, work for a couple of hours until the tide starts filling in, then shut down. A nearby spot may work better mid-tide into high. It all depends. Once you have these factors dialed-in, however, you know when to go. The key is knowing when and where the tides are rising, peaking, or falling. Sure, it’s easy to do the math: tides shift forward approximately 50 minutes, so once you know when high tide is, it’s easy to figure out what time the next low tide and high tide are. The hard part is remembering all of this over a long period of time or if you’re traveling in between countries, etc. Unless you carry a local tide chart with you, it’s not that easy. I never thought I’d actually like nor use a tide watch that much. Sure a tide watch would be nice to use, but I wouldn’t rely on it that much; I was wrong.
During this past trip to Nicaragua and Costa Rica, I used Freestyle’s 3.0 tide watch, and I must have checked out what the tides were doing 20 times a day, at least. Checking where the tide is and knowing pretty much instantly when and where you’re going to surf next, become matter-of-fact. It’s a tech tool that integrates itself perfectly with the lifestyle. Not really that necessary, but it’s sweet to have.The $90.00 Tide 3.0 is very easy to use, lightweight, low-profile, and relatively inexpensive. The Tide 3.0 is a basic tide watch; it gives you all the vital info you need, with a basic graphic showing you where you are in the tide cycle, when the next high or low tide will be, and how many feet.
Highlights:
-Tide data for 75 beaches worldwide for the next 15 years.
-Display of present/future tide data (date, time, hour)
-Programmable Beach Capability with 3-hour offset-Dual Time Zones
-Preset Heat Timer: 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 minutes
-2 alarms-Durable dual injected polyurethane strap-NightVision Backlight Display
-100 Meters H20
The most difficult aspect of using the watch was dialing-in the local tides for where I was surfing. There’s only one pre-set destination in Central America (Punta Arenas, C.R.). Before I went on my trip, I did a little research to find out what the tides would be, then I simply programmed in a tide offset to calibrate the local tides to the programmed Punta Arenas tide. It took a little reading and a few tries, but wasn’t really that difficult. After the position was set, I could save it into my favorite spots, which I can use from here on out for the next 15 years.
The only complaints I have are the ease with which the band comes undone from the band clasp, and with the S2 button, which is easy to bump and trigger, shifting your time (you can set two times, T1 and T2). Not a big deal, but sometimes a pain.
I really recommend that anyone who surfs on a regular basis get this watch. It works well, is easy to use, and will help keep your priorities straight.
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