Doh! Travelled the whole day with crown open.

[Jackie Daytona]

Can’t remember whether it was Che Guevara or Castro, but they took over Cuba and couldnt seem to manage to screw the crown down on their Rolex half the time from the pictures. I think you’ll be ok.

[Laffare]

Originally Posted by Tools

I don't completely understand why you didn't wear it.

Still, unless you had microscopic bugs crawling in your pocket, an unscrewed crown doesn't open up a hole to the environment, nor does it create a power vortex for anything to get either in, or out of, your watch case.

Sorry for the late reply, been a crazy two weeks (which feels like two months!). To get to the airport from our hostel, we needed to arrange a police/military official escort to make sure we went straight to the airport and to help get us through "checkpoints".

This being in latin america during a crazy time, I was advised to just keep any valuables out of sight as I've heard that if people think you have anything to give- they'll ask for bribes in cash or even goods. We also heard stories of guards or people dressed like military/police asking for money and stuff at checkpoints for "travel permits" on a few facebook groups so I thought it would be wise to keep my Rolex in my pocket, out of sight- at least until we were safely in a plane :)

I really was just worried about dirt or pocket lint finding it's way into the crown threads then into the stem then into the movement and bouncing around in there or showing up on the dial. I did my crown threads a quick and light brush with a camera cleaning brush and a couple of soft puffs of air from my camera blower and they look clean to me :)