Pearl Farm Tour, Kauehi Island, Tuamotus
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sat 26 Apr 2008 19:49
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15:49.606S 145:07.120W
After several days anchored in the Kauehi Island
lagoon, Lady Kay and Cleone left us and moved on to the island of
Fakarava. Thinking we would have the lagoon to ourselves, we were
surprised when two rally boats showed up on the horizon and headed toward us -
Viva, a German boat and Wizard, a South African boat. Later that evening,
Viva called on the radio asking if we would be interested in a pearl farm tour
at eleven o'clock the next morning. Apparently, Petra, Viva's captain, had
run into the mayor of the village and he offered to take anyone that was
interested on a tour of a pearl farm as well as a tour of the island
itself. We had seen most of the island already after a twenty minute walk,
but who could turn down a tour led by the mayor (who, we found out later, is
also the priest, owns the one and only store, a bunch of land, and the largest
pearl farm)?
We joined the crew of four from Viva and two from
Wizard on the dock precisely at eleven, and made our way to the one and only
store, where the mayor had said he would meet us. Forty-five minutes later
(early, based on island time) the mayor showed up driving a big white pick-up
truck and indicated that we should all hop in the back. We did so, and
found a place to hang on in with what seemed to be someone's leftover trash
- bits of bread crusts, parts of coconuts and a pile of greasy newspapers as
well as a rusty machete. Once we were all settled in with the trash, we
were taken a half-mile down the only road to the edge of the island.
There, we could see one of the pearl farms, about 150 yards out in the shallow
water.
Because most of the action on a pearl farm takes
place under the water in the oysters, there is not a lot to see above the
water. In this case, the pearl farm consisted of a little shack which
was up on stilts above the coral filled shallow water. Once we
reached the edge of the water, there was much shouting back and forth between
the mayor and the people out in the pearl farm. Finally, it was decided
that only four people at a time could visit the pearl farm. There was
concern that the pearl farm shack might collapse with too much tourist weight in
it. So, three from Viva and one from Wizard started to wade their way out
to the pearl farm. The rest of us decided the walk out might be too hard
on our feet with all the coral, so we asked the mayor to trash truck us back to
our dinghies so we could zip over to the pearl farm.
When we arrived at the pearl farm in the dinghy,
the other four boaters were still there, but the pearl farmers didn't seem
concerned when the rest of us climbed up into the shack. The shack now had
eight boaters and four workers in it and I don't think I was the only one that
was nervous about it. Luckily, this story ends well, and no one was
crushed by a collapsing pearl farm shack. If fact, the pearl farm shack
did not groan or shiver the entire time we were there.
We spent close to an hour observing the business of
the pearl farm and the workers were extremely friendly and helpful as long as
you spoke to them in French, which Petra from Viva did quite nicely.
Essentially, the operation went something like this...
Oysters are grown in the water in dense black
nets. Baby oysters fit well into the netting and as they grow older,
they become encapsulated in the black netting and cannot escape. Once the
oysters reach a certain age? size? they are hauled into the pearl farm shack
where they are split open far enough with a wedge for someone to insert
a 'starter' pearl (machined from mother-of-pearl) using tools that look
suspiciously like dentist implements. Before the pearl is inserted in
precisely the right position within the oyster, a bit of oyster 'meat' is
snipped out of the oyster - this operation is apparently what makes black pearls
black. Something might have been lost in the translation here because it's
still not clear how exactly the black color happens.... Anyway, the
oysters are put back in the water and left there for thirteen months.
After thirteen months, they are hauled out again, the wedge forced in and the
dentist tools used to remove what is now a shiny black pearl. The black
pearl is replaced with a new starter pearl and the process is
repeated. Each oyster goes through this process three times (producing
three pearls) before it is 'taken out of circulation' (split open, muscle meat
removed and saved, other meat thrown overboard for the hungry fish and the two
mother-of-pearl lined shell halves saved for? not sure what). The workers said that the yield of grade A black
pearls is only about 50%. The other 50% either produce black
pearls that are misshapen, or produce no black pearl at all.
That was our lesson in the making of black
pearls. It's all rather eye opening to learn that it takes thirteen
months to create a single black pearl and even then the
yield is only 50%. And it's odd to think about the fact that a piece of
jewelry is produced from/in a living sea creature.
At precisely three o'clock we met back at the
one and only store for the rest of our promised island tour. The mayor
showed up twenty minutes later in another white truck minus the trash. We
settled in the back and bumped along as we were taken to the other end of the
island on the coral sand road that runs through the coconut palm trees. We
arrived at the destination, which the mayor proclaimed was 'paradise', and he
proudly showed us around. The land was his and he had built six or so very
small bungalows for tourists to stay in. Hmmmm, not sure about the
paradise thing, our boat seems mighty comfortable compared to the six tiny
bungalows set on concrete slabs in the blazing sun. The bungalows
were located not too far from another pearl farm, this one much larger and
more substantially built than the first one we saw. The mayor informed us
that the workers were on holiday for a month so there was no activity to
observe. Under normal circumstances, there would have been about
thirty people working the farm.
The little refreshment bar near the bungalows was
closed, but the mayor had one of his lackeys collect some coconuts for us and
they went about cutting the tops off with their machetes (everyone seems
to carry a machete in French Polynesia). These coconuts were not
fully mature and were still green. Sometimes called 'drinking nuts', these
are full of a watery liquid that the locals relish. We all tried it, and
found it was a bit like trying to drink water lightly flavored with coconut out
of the thumb hole of a bowling ball - there was no dainty way to do
it. The mayor's lackey demonstrated the proper drinking nut procedure and
it involved bending your head back and tipping the nut completely upside-down so
that all the liquid splashed out - some in your mouth and the rest down the
front of your shirt. Once the liquid was gone, they cracked the nuts
in half and showed us how to scrape the jelly-like white stuff off the side of
the shell and eat it. I tried it (Don was not that adventurous) and found
it to be a little like coconut jelly, if such a thing existed (this is the part
of the nut that turns into the coconut we know and love when the nut is fully
ripe).
After our coconut adventure, the mayor/priest/pearl
farmer/one and only store owner/land magnate took us back to the wharf in the
back of the truck and our tour was over. It was clear that the
mayor/priest/pearl farmer/one and only store owner/land magnate was 'the man'
and he carried himself just as you might expect 'the man' to do - complete with
a dive knife strapped to his calf (not sure why?), gold eyeglass case clipped to
the front of his tank top, gold chain around his neck and cell phone clipped to
his shorts. The island only has only 200 people on it, all living in the
same village on the same road. Who is this man going to
call?
Pictures to follow after we arrive in Tahiti on the
28th.
Anne
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