Latest Review
September 26, 2024 
For this latest edition of our ongoing Enthusiast Spotlight series, we’re excited to introduce you to 2nd Class Petty Officer Brock Stevens, a Navy Diver with over 5 years of active duty experience. During his service, he’s accumulated more than 9,000 minutes of bottom time. He is currently stationed at the MARMC Dive Locker in Norfolk, VA, and serves as a Ship Husbandry Repair Specialist, maintaining aircraft carriers, submarines, and other surface ships. As a proud co-founder of the MARMC Dive Locker ROV team, Brock leads a group dedicated to utilizing cutting-edge ROVs for underwater inspections and retrievals.
Outside of his military role, Brock is a tool watch enthusiast with an ever-growing collection of dive watches. Additionally, he’s passionate about photography and pursues this passion by documenting his adventures, watches, and EDC on Instagram as @deepsea.edc. For this edition, we’ve equipped him with Marathon’s brand new reissue of the first of their iconic SAR line. The watch famously featured a MIL-SPEC Type I dial with a cyclops date. It relaunches today as the 41mm OSAR-D (Original Search and Rescue with Date).
Hey Brock, Thanks for joining us for this latest edition of Enthusiast Spotlight. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do for a living.
My name is Brock Stevens. I’m a US Navy diver. I’ve been a diver for a little over five years now as a Ships Husbandry Specialist working on repairing aircraft carriers and submarines. When 9/11 happened, I was in third grade. I always wanted to serve my country after that and make sure I could protect the beautiful people that I’m friends with. Growing up, I’ve always just really enjoyed the water. I was always the kid that you’d find at the bottom of the 12 foot section of the pool, holding my breath for as long as possible. Being in the water just came naturally to me. I loved swimming and all that. So I figured why not learn how to dive? Navy Diving was the place for me.
How many dives have you been on to date and what kind of diving do you specialize in?
At this point, I’ve been on over a thousand dives as a Navy Diver. Especially as Ships Husbandry, you can be in and out of the water a couple times a day. It adds up pretty quickly. We dive SCUBA and we dive hard hats. So you’ll see normal SCUBA diving that people do for recreation, but we also dive with a large heavy helmet on, and that’s more of our recovery operations and ship repair operations.
What led you to become the watch enthusiast that you are today?
I got into watches at a young age. My grandpa was always wearing a watch. For me, it was kind of like… what is this thing on your wrist that I like so much? And so growing up, I always wanted one. And when I got one, it was awesome, because it was a diver style watch. And so I wore that for a long time and it has just kind of spiraled out of control from that point. I just fell in love with diver’s watches and I started to wear them while I was diving at work. I thought it would be a great place to actually put them through their paces. Ever since then, I’ve just been wearing them, whether I’m in a submarine or underneath an aircraft carrier. For me, It’s about looking at my watch when I’m down there is awesome, because that’s where they’re supposed to be.
Can you tell us a bit about your personal experience with Marathon watches?
One of the things that I love about Marathon watches is that as an active duty Navy Diver, I see them all the time in the US Navy. When I go on ships, there’s often officers or enlisted wearing them around. It’s pretty cool to see. As a watch enthusiast, I’ve been drawn to just how amazing of tool watches they are. I mean, they are built for divers and that’s what I need at work. And you can tell that they really put a lot of thought and effort into making it something that is actually usable as a tool for me.
The new OSAR-D is a faithful recreation of Marathon’s original Search and Rescue watch. It’s known for its multipurpose legibility. Can you give us your first impressions as a professional diver and as a watch nerd?
For me, it works extremely well as a dive watch and as a tool. For the OSAR-D, the first thing that stands out to me is the height of the bezel. That’s the first thing I look for. As a Navy Diver, it really makes it easy for me to grip and use and manipulate with gloves on. The second thing that stands out for me is the indices—how big they are, how much lume there is. It’s nice and it makes it easily readable for me, especially in low light conditions underwater or just at night.
As a passionate gear enthusiast, and the man behind @deepsea.edc on Instagram, what types of objects will you never leave home without?
As an EDC enthusiast, I never leave the house without a watch, a knife, and a pen. Those are the top three for me, and they’re always my go-to.
What are some tips and tricks you’ve learned when composing your watch and EDC flatlays?
Whenever I’m taking a photo, there’s a few tricks that are very important to me and that I try to abide by. One of them is: Always have a tripod. The second one is: Always make sure that your tools and EDC gear that you are trying to compose in a photo are not too crowded. I think leaving a little bit of space and breathing room highlights the specific objects that you’re trying to photograph. And when it comes to diving watch shots or things that you want to look wet, you always want to have a nice little flower spray can with you. My wife has one and it’s come in handy quite a few times. Just getting that nice dripping wet shot makes all the difference!
SPECIFICATIONS
- Swiss-made, 26 jewels Sellita SW200-1 with date
- Incabloc® Shock Absorber
- 316L surgical-grade stainless-steel finish
- Screw-down crown
- Synthetic sapphire crystal
- Cyclops Date Magnifier
- MaraGlo photo-luminescent paint
- 1,000 feet of water resistance
Please note: The opinions expressed in this interview are not the official views of the U.S. Navy.
