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| The pearl processing plant. From such humble beginnings... |
Our wonderful host, Rangi, a Cook Islander who spent many years in Wellington, filled us in on the workings of pearl farming here.
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| The pearls shells await Nishi delicate surgery. |
Pearls take 18 months to grow and while they can grow at anytime of the year they generally only harvest twice a year as the process is extremely time consuming, laborious, and simply hard work. The colour of the inside ring of the shell determines the colour of the pearl. Depending on the quality of the pearl produced the oysters can be reseeded up to four times for further harvesting. The good oysters are treated this way while the poor ones are discarded straight away and the meat eaten. To extract the pearls the oysters are prised open and a peg inserted between the shells to keep them ajar. They are then layered in a tray and delivered to the technician who then begins the meticulous surgery of extracting the pearl and reseeding the oyster.
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| The operating table |
This work is carried out on the ‘surgical table’ where the water sack is cut and the pearl extracted using long fine tweezers. The assortment of fine, expensive precision instruments used to perform the surgery, sourced and custom made in Japan, resemble those utilised by a dentist, while the working space of the surgeon conjures memories of the granddads jewellery operation.
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| surgery in progress. |
Rangi and her husband Mataio employ a Perth based Japanese surgeon named Nishi. This bald headed, spectacled oddity of a man appears to stick to a strict regime of routine and custom in all his daily activities, not uncommon for the Japanese one assumes. Rangi cooks his food and he dutifully comes in at set times during the day and on my first day there I was asked to move from the head of the table so Nishi could sit there to eat. It was obviously some regimented eating programme he kept to and I was most definitely in his spot! I watched, fascinated, as he shuffled his plates and utensils just so in readiness for eating. Once done he would excuse himself and retreat back to his room, lit rather oddly with an orange bulb, to watch movies rather loudly! He was a nice chap though and was very helpful and obliging in allowing us to watch him work, both at his operating table and whilst he cleaned and polished the pearls.
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| The washing and polishing process. |
This involved ‘spinning’ the pearls in a concrete mixer look-a-like contraption that spun the pearls in water initially, then in a mixture of water and salt to polish and buff them. They were then graded and sized by using a siv like device. With so many pearls being handled on a daily basis there has to be a high degree of trust involved in this work as the monetary value being dealt with is enormous. We were shown single pearls with a retail value of in excess of $1,000 so collectively the figures much be huge. I was reliably informed that Nishi would make $165,000 a year from his work both in the Cook Islands and in Australia, and with nothing to spend his money on here in the Cooks he would be doing alright indeed, thank you very much!
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| Many thousands of dollars worth of pearls! |
Interestingly, as we were departing the island 3 more Japanese arrived to take up their roles as pearl technicians on various other farms on the island.
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