One of the things the Tuamotos are famous for are their black pearls. Way back in the day they used to grow white pearls naturally. Many years of harvesting, however, and the white pearls were gone. The Chinese realized that it was a perfect environment for pearl production and brought in pearl farming. These pearls would be black pearls and were manmade by artificially implanting a small plastic bead into the muscle of the oyster. It is still a lengthy process, as a good size pearl would have to be replanted into a larger oyster year after year to produce the perfect pearl. It could take up to 8 years to produce a high rated black pearl! But with thousands of farms most of the worlds supply of black pearls come from the Tuamotos. Farming is not as prevalent as it used to be, but there are still some massive oyster farm fields floating out in the atolls. Some friends and us got to visit one of these farms and see the process behind the scenes.
This particular farm was owned by a German and his wife who was local.
Pulling up a oyster basket to show how the implantation process works.
Instruments used to pry open the oyster to implant the graff that holds the implant. The pearlescent comes from inside the shell
The German guy who ran the place gave a very extensive, but interesting explanation of the process. He opened up an oyster and dissected it to showed all the parts involved in the implantation. By the end the poor oyster was just bits and pieces…then this happened…
This is our friend Darren of s/v Gratatouille, he likes to eat….anything. He seemed to be concerned about the oyster bits going to waste and asked the owner if it was okay to eat it. The owner was sort of slack jawed, but recovered and replied “well, I guess so, no one has ever asked before”. So, he showed Darren the edible part and down the hatch it went. While we all stood by in horror/amusement, Darren was declaring it “deeeelicious”. Hmmmm…
After that we all went up the the pearl shop where you could buy loose pearls or those turned into jewelry by the owner and his wife. Our friends bought loose pearls as gifts for family and to make jewelry. I found a really cool necklace for my mom.
Owning a pearl farm is a pretty lucrative business, and you can’t beat the view while you are working.
Maybe my next venture should be to become a pearl farmer?
Ahoy,
Loved the pearl post…
My name is Kevin Curran, I’m a biology professor at University of San Diego and also an avid sailor. I sail my Newport 30 out to Catalina Island as much as possible and am hoping to make the big crossing to Polynesia sooner than later…
I thought you might be interested in sharing our home page links on each other’s sailing websites?
I author a sailing blog that, among other things, provides cruising advice for west coast sailors (distances from Southern California harbors out to the main Channel Island destinations.) There’s also some DIY boat maintenance tips thrown in there.
This is my home page.
http://www.captaincurran.com/
If you’re interested, I can add a link to your home page on the Captain Curran sailing blog.
If you like, I can also post your above-mentioned article on my All Things Boat facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/allthingsboat
Thanks a bunch for your consideration.
Kevin Curran
Kevin,
Thanks for the comment. If you wanna link to my blog that would be fine.
Just so you know, I don’t blog very often. I’ve found that since we left on this trip, my blogging has dropped off. I would like to blog more……I just don’t…. :)
CB….