Hello readers, and welcome back to the FAQ Section of the blog, where we take a deep dive into your questions, and hopefully surface with an answer! In this article, I’ll be talking about diving watches, specifically the Tide Graph part. Now, I’m sure many of you have noticed that not all Tide Graphs are the same, there are both analogue and digital ones. Here, I’ll be focusing on the digital ones, and a future article will cover the rest. The example I’ll be using is the G-7900 series, but all digital tide graphs function the same. Ready? Here We Go!

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So the first thing I should explain is just what a tide graph does. You’ll notice the graph has 3 horizontal lines. If the tide is really high, all 3 lines will be filled, if it’s low, just one part of the line will be filled. You can use the tide graph to set the time for the next day, and see what the tide is usually like during that particular time of day.

First up, let’s set the tide graph up. On your watch, press the mode button. You’ll notice the date hasn’t changed, but the time is set to 6 am, so it’s showing you what the tide was like at 6 am on that day. To go to the time now, simply press the forward button until you reach the correct time. If you want to change the date, press the adjust button to go to the moon phase mode (more on that a little later). To go back to the tide graph, press adjust again.

So, let’s move on to the moon display. As many people know, the moon affects the tides, so the two are interconnected. To go into the moon phase, press adjust while in the tide graph mode. You should see the word moon on the top part of the display, along with the date. The moon graph on the left (or right for some watches) will have a graphic and look full or not, depending on what the moon is like on that date. The visible part of the moon will be clear, while the invisible part will be black.

At the bottom of the display, you’ll notice a number (whether whole or decimal) between 0 and 29 based on whether it’s a new moon, waxing, crescent or full.

But how does the tide graph know where we are? That’s actually based on your home city, so if you’re traveling, don’t forget to change it! To calibrate the watch further, you’ll need to do some research. Find out what time high tide is where you are. Then hold the adjust button until you see the word HIGH on the left of the display. Look up the tide tables on the net and see what date and time the tide will be highest at your location, and adjust it accordingly by pressing the top and bottom right buttons.

You can do the same for the moon phase indicator by pressing mode again once you’ve fixed the high tide time and it will allow you to choose whether the moon is passing to the north or the south of you when you look at it at night.

Hope that’s been helpful! We’ll cover the analogue moon phase and tide indicators next time.

Check out our tide graph watches here. Until Next Time - Jimmy B