Our Pearl Farm

The Tuamotu Archipelago

Tahitian pearls are cultured on the low-lying coral atolls of the Tuamotu and Gambier
Archipelago. The coral deposited on the summit of volcanos became extinct millions of years
ago. The formation of a coral reef is very slow; it rises from 0.5 to 2 meters per century. It is
made of coral polyps, shells and skeletal remains of marine plants and animals. The atoll lagoons are
surrounded by chains of low islets called "motu", which are only a few metres above the present sea-level. These atolls look like a champagne glass: thousands of feet deep outside the open sea, shallow (30-40m deep) lagoon inside and the people live on the narrow rim. Of  the 400 atolls in the world there are 84 such atolls in French Polynesia and 78 in the Tuamotu archipelago. These are the atolls of Arutua, Apataki and Toau.

To give you an idea of their size, an atoll like Toau the first on the right is 39 kilometers in length and 20 kilometers across covering an area of 561 square kilometers or 138,626.12 acres.

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Here is a map of The Tuamotu Archipelago; to realize its scale, we could fit Europe at the same scale in this map.

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A close-up on the atoll of Toau and you see on the right side the ocean falling very fast to depth of 10,000 feet and more and on the left the lagoon bottoming at 100 feet max.

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Farm Location and Facilities

In the middle of this motu--in the center of the above photo--we have set up a pearl farm among the coconut trees (see below). Seeing the remoteness of the location sticking out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean we start with nothing and have to transport all the material necessary to build the facilities from the Island of Tahiti 300 miles southwest.

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Then we have built the house where we treat and condition the oysters.

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The next important facility is the seeding house. This is where the pearl is born.

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What is exactly a pearl? It is a gem which mineral is composed of calcium carbonate (CaC03) accounting for 93% of the pearl’s mass, 5% is organic matter and the rest is shared by calcium oxide and water. Such large amount of calcium carbonate is the direct result of the oyster feeding on a myriad of phytoplanktons and diatoms which are particularly abundant in the lagoon of the Tuamotu archipelagos.

The calcium carbonate form crystals perfectly organized as the wonder of mother nature and are bound together by the organic substance called Conchioline.

The all process of pearl formation is so extraordinary and the factors involved are so big in number depending on farmers skills, water condition, temperature, genetics, conditioning, predators, etc. that the end result for a commercial grade pear alone is less than 30% and a AAA quality pearl is 5% or less.

What is the difference between a natural Pearl and a cultured pearl? The only difference is the nature of the nucleus around which the pearly substance forms. In natural pearls, sand particles, parasite eggs and other foreign objects form the center of the sphere, whereas an artificial nucleus of shell is inserted to grow cultured pearls. The pearl forming process in both is identical. A culture pearls is a product of the deposit of calcium carbonate around a shell nucleus made from a fresh water bivalve from the Missisipi river.

Pearl Farming - seeding process

Before the nucleus can be inserted we have approximately 2 years of preparation for the oyster (Pinctada Margaritifera) from the time we collect the spats (larvae stage) to the time it is ready to be seeded. During this period the oyster is controlled, calibrated and prepared.

The oysters are first picked up from the middle of the motu and cleaned.

Oyster batch fresh out of the water
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A farm worker cleans a batch of oysters
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Inserting a foreign body into the living flesh of a pearl oyster is an operation that demand skill and takes years of experience to achieve a good rate of retention.

We introduce the nucleus along with a piece of the mantle lobe from another oyster selected just for that depending of the color pearl we are trying to produce. This mantle lobe is responsible for converting the calcium into hard shell with secretions of “ periostracum, calcite and nacreous substances. As a result the oyster immediately form a pearl sac around the nucleus to protect itself and from its surface cells, a nacreous substance is secreted forming three to four layers per day and completing the pearl making process in 18 months.

Here is a batch prepared and ready to be seeded. (They have to be put to sleep and we play classical music to keep them relaxed).

Preparing for seeding
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Prepared oysters
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Here is the insertion of the nucleus; you notice than the oyster is barely opened and it is really hard for the farmer to be good at this operation, it takes years of practice.

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Right away, the oysters are put back in the water, and shortly after sent back few miles away in the middle of the lagoon suspended at certain depth. ( farmers keep their secrets)

Oysters are strung together before being put back in the water
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Oysters cleaned, seeded and back in the water
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The Harvest

About 18 months to two years later we go back and pick them up for harvesting.

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Here are great photos of how the harvesting process is done. Below we have sacrifriced an oyster to show you the details in close up.

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Normaly once we harvest a pearl, we release the oyster back to the lagoon so they can finally relax and to also reproduce their species so we can have lots of oysters to work on and bring you those AAA grade pearls.