While not overly material, when we do buy something we want it to be right, to work for us in our environment, to fit in with our surfing and lifestyle.

So as a surfer choosing a watch is an important thing. A watch is one of those things in life that by its nature is very close to you, sitting snug on your wrist.

SURFit has reviewed a range of great watches designed just for surfers. Some of the makes also cater for other extreme lifestyles like skateboarders, mountainbike riders and snow boarders and all these watches are pretty cool.

Choosing a watch is subjective. That means that even if a watch has a whole lot of functions it comes down to what you like or don't like, or if you're like me and have no fashion sense, what your girl may like or not like.

To start, all the watches we looked at were electronic. They are run by batteries and have a high degree of accuracy. I got burned really badly once buying a high profile swiss brand automatic that was certified as a chronometer only to find that it lost almost 5 minutes a month! So all the watches we covered are accurate with this accuracy measured in terms of seconds a month.

...to keep time of his time in the air. Caleb Grom Bash Sequence 1. Photo Kidman

Freestyle are a watch brand that have been around in the surfing market place for a while, and they produce watches with features that are good for surfers.

I first became aware of Freestyle when a surfer down at Dee Why, Tye Cardwell who was a grom at that time, showed me his digital Freestyle watch with the countdown heat timer and I'm pretty sure it had a heat bezel. A heat bezel is a ring with numbers on it from say 1 to 10 that you turn each time you get a wave and thus keeps count of your waves. Very useful for seeing how well the judges have done their job.

Freestyle sent us 2 of their latest watches. They both are medium in size and there are a heap of features common to both watches. They are both digital watches with time day date and month, water resistant to 100m, support dual times and military 24hour time, have this cool 'blue light' Night Vision electro luminescent backlight and have chrono split times.

A count-down timer is a particularly useful function as it puts the time remaining in your heat, in this case 5min 47sec out of a 15min heat, right in your face

The 4 alarms are great if you are traveling and need to get up at a certain time, then check flight and other interconnecting flight times, you can set it all ahead of time and get reminded along the way.

Countdown timers are handy for heats, as they show you the time you have left from the time you started a heat. For example for a 15 minute heat, after 10 minutes, it shows 5 minutes. Sure you can work out the time in your head from any watch, but having the display show you the time left in big numbers seems easier to really get the message through. 'Doh! Only 5 minutes to go!'

The watch is light with mode buttons easily accessed, and has a very straight forward operation to set the functions.

The Freestyle 788 Shark Mako is stainless steel with screen icons that help manage its many functions

The Freestyle 718 Shark Zone is a great watch. Comfortable, light, buttons easily accessible for changing modes in the surf and easy to setup

This watch also has a great feature where an area of the screen is used to display small icons indicating what functions are set or underway such as which alarms are on. You can easily see where you are going in accessing all the features.

Both Freestyle watches have a 5 year warranty but note that it doesn't cover normal wear and tear, the crystal, the battery, watch case plating or band.

Rip Curl sent us some real 'mans' watches. While they have an extensive range of watches of all sizes for guys and gals, the ones we received for the review were pretty big beasts.

Rip Curl's High Roller with 24K gold plating was a watch we couldn't get our hands on

I had no idea what the Spring and Neap Tide Range indicator did but it looked good. What it does indicate is the difference between tide heights. However, how did you set this thing? It had to be hard didn't it?

No! In fact with the Rip Curl ATS you don't even need to set the moon at all, it is automatic, nor do you set the Tide Range dial, its automatic. So that leaves setting the tide and that was easy. All you do is set the watch time to the time at high tide, set the tide dial to the high tide mark, the turn the time back to the right time.

So for example if the time now is 12:00 and high tide is at 3:00 you turn the time to 3:00. Then turn the tide dial to high. Then turn the time back to 12:00. The tide dial automatically adjusts to what the tide is meant to be.

A digital watch, Rip Curl's Grab has ATS & almost every digital function you could want along with pinless case so it won't come off

And Rip Curl have extra seals on the crowns of their watches so that even if you inadvertently leave it unscrewed, there is a good chance no water will get in. Talk about attention to detail!

Rip Curl offer a 5 year warranty, 2 year on the battery with a very fast turnaround of 2 days not including postage for repairs.

The high end model we received was the sssOrbit analog watch, where sss indicates stainless steel in both case and band, and even though it looked big and like a clunker, the double lock band was pretty supple.

11 jewels and an individual number make this watch a couple of hundred dollars dearer than the other Curl analog watch we received, the Aerial.

The Aerial has a stainless steel case and rubber strap connected with pins along with 5 jewels.

The Rip Curl Aerial is a big watch but with a pretty low profile and very smooth, sleek finish. The PU, polyurethane band is comfortable and the ATS is a great system

The Spoon Machado has Rob's signature on it and oozes style. It has the locations of 34 surf spots around the world, a map of them & phone country codes built in

Spoon provided 3 watches, all digital and all with a very futuristic oval and molded shape that is the trademark of the Spoon brand.

The top of the list and standout was the Rob Machado signature model and it oozes all the style and class that this guy has in real life.

It has an aluminum face plate on a polycarbonate case, stainless steel base, with a polyurethane two-tone black and silver-grey band. It is a fairly large watch.

This watch is packed full of functions such as a 5 channel alarm, stopwatch with memory, normal or military time, a countdown timer.

The Spoon Classic series PCW017 has a polycarbonate case and has a futureistic robotic appearance

What are jewels? The term jewels refers to synthetic rubies that are used like bearings in the inner workings of the analog watches. The more jewels the more smoothly the watches run and so are an indicator of watch quality. Digital watches don't have jewels as there are no moving parts.

It terms of appearance the Aerial watch didn't have all the bumps and markup of the Orbit, but its smooth sleek appearance was felt to be very stylish. The polyurethane strap is substantial and this is one comfortable, smooth stylin' watch.

The sssOrbit and Aerial use the bezel to provide countdown timers for heats.

The last Rip Curl watch was the Grab, a pinless digital ATS watch. This one has all the bells and whistles like an alarm, moon & tide info, dual time, stop watch and countdown timer and a nice blue backlight. This one came with a nylon webbing strap that is feed through the watch case itself. There are no pins so this watch will not fall off.

It also has a function called 'Future Tide' that allows you to enter a date and time in the future and it tells you what the tide will be then.

It has a very modern rounded style and a heap of functions. Similar to the Freestyle watch, the Grab has a section on the face marked off where icons indicate what function you are in, and greatly assist when you have to setup the watch.

By far the most expensive watches we reviewed, but The Curl have done a great job.

Spoon Core Metal series, the PZT013 has numerous functions in a futuristic palladium coated stainless steel case & band

It has the time of 34 'surf' locations around the world programmed in along with the country codes for telephone calls, and a world map that can display a location!

To fit all this in on the face it has a fine dot screen that can be a little tricky to see at times. The screen is dark with light digits. With the press of a button the screen can be switched to large display and it also has a very sharp backlight.

Spoon also provided two other digital watches. A Core Metal series, the PZT013 which is a small watch made from palladium plated stainless steel which is very distinctive in style.

The Spoon Machado is one cool watch. It sits a bit high but this is probably because of all the features that have been put into it. The backlight is particularly cool

Both watches have many of the functions of the Machado except at a lower feature level, for example only 1 alarm. There is also no map or international time and telephone function.

All the Spoon watches are 100m water resistant and have an expected battery life of 2 years. Warranty from Spoon is 3 year, it doesn't include wear and tear, bands or battery.

The Swatch Scuba Satsuma is even bigger and bolder, crying out 'Look at me!'. It is however very light of aluminium construction

The Swatch Scuba Irony Ripple is a big watch with big, bold classic features and solid

The Machado is definitely worth checking out and if you like a digital, semi-unconvential style then the other watches in the range will have appeal as well.

Swatch. If you haven't looked at Swatch for a while you are in for a big surprise. They are no longer the plastic disposable product but have an extensive range of very stylish and quality watches.

Swatch sent us 2 watches, both part of their Scuba range. Being Swatch the watches are Swiss made and both are water resistant to 200m.

They are both big and bold, large watches with a pretty much 'in your face' styling that you just can't miss on someone's wrist.

The Ripple model is basic with just a second hand and date, but is very appealing with its bold simplicity.

The polished stainless steel case is a smoothed classic shape and it has a big black plastic bezel with white numbers and nodules for easy grip. It has a real rubber strap that is a little clingy at first but moulds really well to your wrist. The band is secured by pins, but with a sense of style so that the band has slots in the top where it connects to the watch allowing the watch case to show through.

Dark blue face, white numerals, black bezel and bright red second hand make this watch look like a classic.

The Satsuma is very different in its own way. The watch is also big with a totally aluminium case and band except for some white plastic decorative pieces. The total effect of the watch is to make it bright and light both in look and weight.

With your Swatch you can also keep track of the time it takes for big drops like Conan Hayes, also Swatch Pro Team Surf, on this one

Christian Fletcher is another aerial myster who needs a watch to keep track of airtime. CF is on the Swatch ProTeam Surf

It has a very sharp looking face in bright orange with black and white markings on the face. This watch has chrono stop watch and timer features. In its own way the Satsuma stands out on your wrist saying 'look at me'.

From a style perspective these watches have a definite appeal. One point to note is that the glass is domed up and stands up about 2mm above the protection of the bezel.

Swatch offer a 12 month international warranty covering any mechanical faults, the Renata (their own brand) battery is warranted for 12 months. The bands aren't covered under warranty, but Swatch also advised they are happy to consider any repair even outside of warranty as part of their general courtesy and goodwill program.

We liked quite a few of the watches reviewed, and even some of the ones we couldn't get our hands on but drooled over in the catalogs. All the companies involved are pushing the limits on style and functionality.

The decision is yours - which watch, but no one says you have to have just one! SURFit