Bart Bear's Blog

Do you know what these people are doing? Apart from the kids that are waving at us, that is. Well, they are doing one of the vital steps in growing Fiji pearls. The long rope that they are hauling up the slope has lots of bags attached to it and in each bag there is a batch of oysters. Each oyster has been injected earlier on with a tiny round bit of grit that may eventually be covered with lots of oyster-goo and turn into a pearl. Problem is that lots of oysters object to the injection and spit the grit out. So the ladies are checking to see which oysters have accepted the injection. These oysters are then taken out in bags and attached to long ropes in deeper water where some years later they will have grown the sort of pearls that make Mum drool. She has a couple of Fiji pearls now, not really big ones because Dad doesn't have a really big bank account. More pictures of pearl farming later.

Labels: Captain Cook, cruising, Fiji