First Love - KonTiki

My first kiss from the Eterna Kontiki came in San Francisco in 2001.  I had come back to America after nearly ten years teaching English in Japan, Portugal, Finland and Scotland.  If I am honest, I was only aware of watches on a very peripheral level.  I knew Rolex, and of course knew Omega as I had a spiffy yellow Schumacher Speedmaster that I had picked up in Finland with the extra money I had made tutoring a wealthy family's kids English that summer in St. Andrews.  But I really did not know much.

I plumped up for an Eterna Super Kontiki COSC certified, blue dial.  I found it at Seregin's which at that time was just behind the Macy's in Union Square. 

That watch saw me through what were perhaps the two most tumultuous years of my life.  We moved back to the US, I started a job that was way above my abilities to handle and spent 15 hour days struggling to keep my head above water.  

And as I was in the English teaching business with oversight of three schools in California and one in Chicago, 9/11's arrival that bright September morning was something that challenged me beyond belief.  My phone rang off the hook for 36 hours straight with calls coming from concerned parents from all over the world wanting to make sure their children were safe.  I am not a parent, but for the weeks that followed I was a surrogate for a few more than a thousand young people.

Courtesy of Eterna

We don't need watches.  We have cell phones, we have (seemingly) a million ways to know the time without a watch.  But what we wear on our wrists?  It does more than tell time.  In many ways it is personal iconography.  It reminds us of a place and time.  It reminds us of challenges, of difficulties, of triumphs.  It reassures us when we might fear that all is lost.  And all is never lost.  And that Eterna Kontiki while not making me feel invincible, made me confident that things would be okay.  And as it turned out, they were.

The new Eterna Royal Kontiki exudes the same feeling for me.  And if I were in the store "choosing", this would be my choice.  The Eterna Royal Kontiki Chronograph is subdued, but seemingly ready to measure the time the most challenging situations.  It has hit what I have come to refer to as a "memory nerve".  

Here are the details, straight outta' Grenchen -

Royal Kontiki Chronographe

7755.40.50.0280

Movement: Eterna Calibre 3916A
Casematerial: Stainless steel; 42.55 mm
Casefloor: Case back screw-fitted; sapphire crystal opening
Dial: Anthracite
Strap: Stainless steel; folding clasp
Watchfunction: Hour, minute, second, date, chronograph