Rolex Explorer II

When Rolex introduced the Explorer II, their slogan was “You can tell by the men who wear them.” One man whom Rolex profiled in advertisements was Jean-François Pernette.At the age of thirteen he became enamored of the world “at the center of the Earth.” He spent his youth exploring the caves of Bordeaux and the Pyrenees. It was there in the mountains between Spain and France that he made his first discovery: an underground river in the Massif de la Pierre-Saint-Martin that had never before been seen by human eyes. And in 1980, at the age of twenty-six, he would lead the first expedition to an underground river in the remote interior of Papua New Guinea.On his wrist the entire time was an Explorer II… which certainly didn’t receive any special treatment throughout the expedition.Pernette wrote: “Moisture, sand, mud, and especially frequent and violent shocks against the rocky walls—I spared it nothing. During the expedition to New Guinea, all my teammates counted on it to give them the