A vintage-inspired dive watch is a sure-fire hit in today’s watch community, and especially one that manages to balance classic design cues with more modern proportions. With that, we have the Méraud Bonaire, a 39mm dive watch available in 3 different dial colors (black, blue and grey) and various strap options, open for funding now on Kickstarter.

Lots of Kickstarter watch startups come across our desk, but the ones that stand out are those that meld good looks with a quality (generally mechanical) movement and a well-thought-out campaign. Méraud, a Belgian brand established by watch collector and enthusiast Stijn Busschaert, is one such brand — a perusal of their Kickstarter page seems to indicate that these people pretty well have their shit together (the beautiful photography certainly helps).

The Bonaire, whose namesake is the beautiful Caribbean island famous for its SCUBA diving, features a 39mm x 12.5mm stainless steel case, unidirectional, scratch-resistant diver bezel inspired by vintage Bakelite models, C3 Swiss SuperLuminova®-coated polished steel indices, a domed sapphire crystal with AR coating, and a modified STP1-11 automatic movement. The STP1-11 is a Swiss-made movement (STP is a division of the Fossil Group) that beats at 28,8000 bph and features a 44-hour power reserve. The version in the Bonaire has been modified to remove the date function such that there are only two crown positions, ridding the watch of the annoying “ghost date” seen on some watches that utilize date movements but don’t actually feature a date. You also get drilled lugs, a screw-down case back with a beautiful etching of a SCUBA diver, screw-down polished crown and 200m of water resistance for true dive watch functionality.

Not content to merely offer a beautiful watch, Méraud is also featuring numerous strap/bracelet options with the Bonaire: each watch will ship with a hand-finished, grained French leather strap in the buyer’s choice of several color options, a rubber Tropic-type strap and a Nato strap, as well as a strap-changing tool and a luxury wooden box. There are options for additional straps, a watch pouch and quick-release spring bars as well, and even a stretch goal: once 125 bacers are reached, there will be an option to recieve the watch with an Oyster-style bracelet in place of the leather strap at no additonal cost.