Soaring 10,000 feet above the endless dark sea, famed aviator/explorer “Colac Dan” Wellington grabbed his flight map and glanced down at his wrist to note the time. “Damn it all,” he muttered to no one as he peered down at the new Hamilton Skymaster GMT. “Can’t see the GMT hand worth a s***.”

He held the watch up to try to catch more of the light from the small lamp over his head, and concluded the time was just after 1500 GMT. “Time for my last turn, and then I should be able to see Oden Cay just after sunrise.” Oden Cay, his destination, was a tiny volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific, barely even on any maps. Rumor was it was a small paradise full of exotic creatures and possibly rare elements, and Colac Dan intended to find it.

After making the turn, Colac Dan laid aside his navigational aids and reset his jury-rigged autopilot system, and then reached behind the seat into his insulated bag. He cracked open a cold Wakachangi lager, and turned his attention back to the Hamilton Skymaster GMT. It had been provided by the trip’s sponsor, a magazine for gentlemen living the luxury lifestyle, whose readers loved to thrill vicariously to the exploits of adventurers like Colac Dan.

GMT visibility aside, he did have to appreciate the overall design of the Hamilton Skymaster. The polished steel case held a black dial with clear arabic hour numerals and the trademark Hamilton Khaki sword/syringe hands, this time filled with vintage lume. The watch had three crowns — one for setting time, including the GMT hand; one to rotate an internal 60-minute bezel; and one to rotate another internal bezel with airport codes. Colac Dan set this bezel, and the main time, to “SYD,” to remind him of home no matter where he was in the world.

The Wakachangi finished, Colac Dan grabbed a half-empty bottle of red wine and poured himself a pint. Sure, alcohol didn’t make it easier to read the GMT hand, but it certainly made it easier to get through all those lonely hours alone in his seaplane. He snorted in disgust as he thought of the soft-skinned financiers and lawyers who just sat behind their desks, sipping their martinis and their alcoholic spritzers and reading their luxury lifestyle magazines. They could buy and wear a Skymaster, of course, but they would never know the thrills experienced by a real man like Colac Dan, flying thousands of feet above the sea with nothing but a map, a watch, and alcohol, in pursuit of the unknown.

Returning to the watch, he concluded it was attractive and highly legible, other than that damn GMT function. The GMT hand sat in an inner circle, with a 24-hour scale. The small size and faint printing of the scale, though, made it virtually unreadable in all but the brightest light. “At least they didn’t send me the version with the UTC scale,” he thought. “That thing is indecipherable even when you can see it.”

Although the watch was 42mm, it wore smaller, especially on Colac Dan’s big wrists. While the thick croc-print strap and signed deployant clasp that had come with the watch were nice enough, Colac Dan had swapped them out for his preferred asbestos strap, which he knew would keep the watch on his wrist even if the rest of him burned to a crisp. By now, the alcohol and the strain of 15 hours of continuous flight was taking its toll, so Colac Dan pulled his hat down over his eyes and reclined as far as his seat would allow. The light of early dawn would be enough to wake him, and he should be able to see Oden Cay shortly thereafter.

A few hours later, the first sunrays streaming into the cockpit indeed awoke Colac Dan. He sat up, blinked, and looked out the window, where he saw…nothing. Nothing but endless sea. He blinked again. “Damn,” he growled. “I must’ve misread that GMT hand and made the turn early. I knew I should have asked ’em for the travel clock, instead.”