French Polynesia/Taha’a: Love Pearl Farm
Continuing the exploration of the Tahaa Island – here comes the second pearl farm, also in a stunning setting with the distant view of Bora Bora – Love Pearl Farm. Here, we got to see the actual process of how pearls harvested – a surgeon-like specialist extracting the pearls from the oysters through a narrow opening, immediately classifying them by shape/size/vibrancy of color and then reinserting a bigger nucleus for the next round. In pearl farming, a small nucleus made from a Mississippi River clam is inserted into an oyster with a graft of a lip material from another oyster (with the most colorful mother-of-pearl inner shells). Then these oysters grow the mother-of-pearl material around the nucleus for over a year before being harvested and the entire process is repeated. Totally amazing! I always missed not becoming a surgeon, but maybe there is still time to become a pearl farmer with a similar skillset?!
