Pearls

Today I went to a pearl farm as Broome is the pearl capital, and I learned some very interesting fact about pearls. Up till now I have never shown any interest in pearls, which made it all quite new and interesting...

So natural pearls are only found one in 10000-100.000 oysters. not having more perals is mostly due to little anymals that like to shelter inside the oyster and as some kind of rent they clean the oyster shells...

Pearls are formed from a slimy material called nacre that is clotting around irregularities like sand, so cleaning the oyster prevents the formation of pearls...

So what do they do at pearl farms? They collect oysters, and put a little piece of shell covered with the nacre producing organ inside the gonad of the oyster ( a true operation through a two cm opened shell...) ... in this way the cleaning animal cannot touch it. Nacre will be formed and will cover the little piece of shell. The oysters are turned over every day by hand to get a round shape of the pearl. After 30 days they are put in the more nutrition rich shalow water, where they clean them by hand during 2,5 years.... They are packed with ten in a cage and cleaned by backpacker looking for a seasonal job.... After 2,5 year the pearls are collected.... about 85% will have formed a nice round pearl. The price range varies on how shiny, round and perfect the pearl is and can be worth more than 10.000 dollars! 

There are also fresh water pearls from China, produced in bulks in tanks and therfore a lot cheaper. I bought a very imperfect pearl on the market, but I love its imperfections ...just like real life ;)