In celebration of World Oceans Day, Garmin is introducing their new Descent Mk2S watch. They have also partnered with Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute Philippines (LAMAVE) to promote marine research for the conservation of marine megafauna and their habitats in Southeast Asia.
The Garmin Descent Mk2S is one of the most sophisticated and connected watch-style dive computers from the brand today. It has a 1.2-inch color sunlight-readable sapphire display, a 43mm case, and interchangeable QuickFit bands in silicone, leather, metal, or nylon.
The Descent Mk2S supports several dive modes including air, nitrox, trimix, and up to 100% O2 for single and multiple gas dives. It features gauge, apnea, apnea hunt, and closed-circuit rebreather. The watch also comes with a three-axis underwater compass and displays depth, dive time, temperature, NDL/TTS, ascent/descent rates, gas mix, PO2, N2 loading, and decompression/safety stop information.
When not immersed in water, the Descent Mk2S doubles as a premium multisport GPS smart watch with multi-global navigation satellite system (GNSS) support, enhanced wrist-based heart rate monitoring, animated workouts and multiple sports profiles, including a newly added Surf profile.
Users can also monitor their health with its all-day monitoring features such as Pulse Oximeter for blood oxygen monitoring, Sleep Score, Stress Level, and Body Battery monitoring. Other features include call, text, and calendar alerts, music storage, and a battery life of up to seven days or 30 hours in dive mode.
Divers can store and review dive data for up to 200 dives on the watch of view them on the new Garmin Dive companion app. They can also plan their next trip via the Explore tool to search through more than 2,7000 dive sites around the world.
A dedicated The Descent Mission campaign will also be carried out by Garmin. The two-part series aims to bring together a collective effort from divers, prominent diving personalities, and divers in Asia to contribute to this CSR campaign. Funds from the campaign will be donated to LAMAVE in order for people to have the opportunity to become more aware of marine ecology through the photography records from the campaign and LAMAVE research methods.
Ten diving personalities, including Martin Zapanta, Cat Triviño, and Valerie Bautista will be donating their pre-loved Descent Mk1 for a charity auction relay from June 8 to 17, 11am to 1pm. The relay auction will be held on each personality’s Instagram page, with one personality holding an auction per day.
The highest bid for each auction will win the watch from the respective diving personality. Funds raised from the charity will be donated to LAMAVE.
Every photo of marine life captured by divers is a contribution of valuable information to marine life research. Through the The Descent Mission #EveryDiveCounts Underwater Photo Contest, Garmin invites diving enthusiasts of all levels to submit their photographs of marine life to be populated as research data.
Every diver can be a citizen scientist by contributing precious marine life data to LAMAVE’s #CitizenScience collaborative data collection and analysis project with professional scientists through the platform iNaturalist.
The gathered data can help LAMAVE’s research on marine species such as marine turtles, whale sharks and manta rays, by providing information on individuals and their distribution. Through photographs of these species, LAMAVE uses a method called “photo-identification” to analyze and identify unique patterns on the bodies of these marine animals and newly identified animals will be added to the national population database for the species for marine research.
Divers can submit underwater photographs of marine life on iNaturalist until August 31, 2021.
The Garmin Descent Mk2S is now available in the Philippines in all Garmin Brand Stores, official Garmin online stores (Lazada, Shopee, Kinetic.com.ph), and the Garmin PH Viber Community for PhP 57,995. Three variants will be available for users to choose from:
Check out the list of stores that will carry the new Descent Mk2S below:
| Garmin Brand Dealers | |
| Garmin SM Megamall | Garmin SM City Pampanga |
| Garmin SM Mall of Asia | Garmin Shangri-La Plaza |
| Garmin Uptown Mall | Garmin SM City Baguio |
| Garmin Alabang Town Center | Garmin Glorietta 1 |
| Garmin SM Aura Premier | Garmin SM City Cebu |
| Garmin SM City North Edsa | Garmin SM Lanang Premiere |
| Garmin The Podium | Garmin Festive Walk |
| Garmin Ayala Malls Vertis North | Garmin SM City Bacolod |
| Garmin Dive Dealers | |
| Nautilus Dive & Sports Center | South Shore Divers – Davao |
| Diver’s Depot | South Shore Divers – General Santos |
