After our adventure at Horizontal Falls and our flight to Cygnet Bay, a 4WD bus took us on the short drive to the Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm where we had a quick look around the shop trying to spot the most expensive pearls before our Kiwi guide took us on a tour of the farm.

The pristine waters off the Northern Western Australia coastline is home to the largest oyster in the world, the Pinctada Maxima. They are truly enormous with a weight in the hand to match.

Plastic Buttons

Initially the pearling industry in the Broome region was all about mother-of-pearl from the oyster’s shell and used mainly for buttons and decoration. But a drop in the market caused largely by new manufacturing materials, in particular plastic buttons, meant Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm needed to diversify in some way to survive.

Natural pearls found in wild oysters are extremely rare with only one in every 10,000 containing a gem. Diving to collect oysters is a dangerous pursuit and many ‘Pearlers’ have perished while gathering their catch. Due to the rarity of natural pearls a very enterprising Japanese gentleman by the name of Kokichi Mikimoto in 1893 developed a technique whereby a small piece of shell, shaped into a bead, was inserted into the body of the oyster where it acted as an irritant causing the oyster to build layer upon layer of nacre on the bead to smooth the irritant. This mimicked the natural process of the oyster when irritants from grains of sand, shell or food could not be ejected. The eventual efforts of Mikimoto’s research was the world’s first cultured pearl.

The secret is discovered

Not surprisingly the technology was kept secret but experiments by Lyndon Brown, the founders’ son, at Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm eventually discovered the culturing technique and within a few years the farm’s fortunes had turned. Now these South Sea pearls are the most prized in the world with prices to match.

The farm now grows its own oysters and once mature they join the seeded wild oysters kept off-shore in cages and ‘harvested’ after approximately 5-years. They can be re-seeded several times to produce multiple cultured pearls. Once ‘retired’ the oyster meat is then extracted for consumption. Eating one of these giants would be a real challenge.

We found one!

Our guide opened one of the oysters to show where the pearl grows and there, sat glistening, was an almost perfectly round 11.5mm pearl. Each pearl is graded on a scale with A1+ being the best and, as chance would have it, that is exactly how this one was later graded and valued at a shade over $1,000.

Following the tour and another visit around the store we made our way to the restaurant where a lunch of grilled barramundi and coconut rice was included in our trip. Before, once again, boarding the bus to the next very special location of our trip.

More information on the history of Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm and available tours: www.cygnetbaypearlfarm.com.au