Freestyle Tide 3.0 Watch Review

by Admin

For years I have been buying Freestyle tide watches. I love the design, price, and function of them. My latest is the Tide 3.0.

It doesn't have a chart representing the tide like on my previous Freestyle watches. Instead, it has a vertical indication/direction of where the tide is. The next actual tide is displayed as L or H with the time and height. Like the others you can pull up future tides for years to come. In fact it has 15 years of data programmed into it for 75 beaches. For California alone it has the following surf spots:

• Humboldt Bay


• Ocean Beach


• Mavericks


• Santa Cruz


• Carmel


• Morro Bay


• Pismo Beach


• Gaviota


• Rincon


• Ventura


• Malibu


• South Bay Beaches


• Huntington Beach


• Oceanside


• La Jolla


• Mission Bay

Of course, there is an offset function if your beach is not covered.

This overall new layout gives the watch more room to display data. Everything is bigger, including the BIG function which allows for huge numbers to display time. Of course it has dual time zones, each with tide setting, heat timer of 15,20,25,30, and 35 minutes, two alarms, and nightvision backlight display.

Like most decent modern watches, it is rated to a ridiculous depth that most commercial divers will never even go. In this case, 100 meters.

There is only one minor drawback that I could find. Occasionally, when surfing, I would somehow bump the dual time function and it would switch to other time zone. No big deal, a push of a button sets it back.

I bought mine from "eWatches.com".
When I last checked it was 69 bucks with free shipping. They have the best prices by far. That goes for most watches. (Update:They no longer carry freestyle watches, try Surfboards Etc.)

Beware of eBay sellers that are offering it new at a cheaper price. I bought a Freestyle once and the tides were off. The time of the tide was correct but the absolute height of the tide was always wrong. I thing it was a bad batch that got into some sellers hands.