「きれいな宝石ですね」、適当な話題かどうかわからないが、とりあえずそう水を向けてみた。

「」、、。

'That's a pretty piece of jewelry,' — I wasn't sure if it was an appropriate topic, but I tried steering the conversation that way.

Literal

''Pretty jewel is [confirmation-ね]'', appropriate topic is-whether-[or-か] not-understand-[but-が], for-the-time-being that-way water [object-を] turned-toward-[try-てみた].

水を向ける is an idiomatic expression meaning 'to bring up a topic, to broach a subject, to steer the conversation' — literally 'to direct water toward'. 適当 here means 'appropriate, suitable', not the other meaning of 'careless, haphazard' — the sense depends on context. ~かどうか ('whether X or not') is a standard interrogative embedding.