If you take a look at the map that heads up this post, you see that Rangiroa is better described as an atoll rather than your typical island. In fact, it is the second largest atoll in the world, with a length of almost fifty miles and a width of sixteen miles. There are two small towns on two small islets with a total population of around 2,500.
This atoll consists of 415 motus, islets and sandbars that encircle an enormous lagoon. The little islands range from 1,000 to 1,500 feet wide and are flat and sandy. For that reason, the economy consists predominantly of pearl farming and scuba diving. No less an authority than Jacque Cousteau describes this lagoon as one of the world’s most beautiful and elaborate dive site in the world.
Insignia arrives in this lagoon through a narrow passage and we join the 4-masted sailing ship Wind Spirit around 8:30am. We tender in to the dock and are picked up by bus to be taken to Gaugain’s Pearl, the largest pearl farm on Rangiroa. Our excursion, entitled Discover the World of Pearls, is a two-hour education and shopping opportunity of black pearls.
Wikipedia’s article about Rangiroa contains this summary of pearl farming: “The breeding of pearl oysters in the lagoon can produce black pearls. Black pearls (meaning the marine cultured pearls produced from the black lip pearl oyster shell, Pinctada margaritifera) are abundant in the atolls of French Polynesia. These pearls, which have a wide range of natural colours, from white to dark and all shades of grey, are the only cultured pearls in the world with so many different natural colours as the famous green rose peacock.
“The technique to produce marine cultured pearls was developed in Japan and, except some minor details, is similar in French Polynesia. A mother of pearl bead is inserted in the animal together with a piece of tissue (mantle) taken from another pearl oyster. The piece of tissue, as a graft tissue, will develop quickly and will form a skin around the bead and then will deposit mother of pearl on the surface of the bead. Bead rejection is important and concern about 30 percent of the seeded shells, mainly because the graft tissue is not close enough to the bead. Even with perfectly round beads, only 20 percent of the pearls will be perfectly round at the harvest, about two years after the seeding.”
As soon as we arrive, we are guided to a sitting area and meet Philip, who really gives us a thorough education on black pearls.
I wish I had my notepad because some of the things he said were really interesting. Let’s see what I can remember …
- The most important person in this whole process he refers to as a technician. This is the person who must open the pearl to insert the bead and piece of mantle. Do that incorrectly and you can either kill the oyster or end up with no pearl. Most of these technicians originally came from Japan, and were paid piecework – and made a fortune doing it. There is now a school in French Polynesia that teaches this difficult skill, and Gaugain’s Pearl will only hire people from that school in order to provide jobs to those graduates.
- The bead of shell that is inserted is critical. It must be hard enough to drill into after the pearl is formed. Right now, the mother of pearl pieces come from a mollusk from the Mississippi River in the US, but if that source gets any more expensive, they will have to search elsewhere.
- This whole cultured pearl procedure was invented by Mikimoto Kokichi from Japan, and the method he devised is still used today.
- Natural pearls are very rare. Only one in 100,000 oysters will produce a natural pearl, and even those won’t necessarily be of good quality.
- Most cultured pearls come from Japan and China, but the black cultured pearls from Polynesia are the most highly prized and therefore more expensive.
- Similar to the world’s diamond supply being tightly controlled by DeBeers, the pearl market is dominated by about fifteen buyers, most of whom are from China or Japan.
- The oysters can produce maybe four pearls, one at a time. The size and quality will diminish with each. At some point, the oysters are then sold as food.
After Philip’s presentation, we are ushered into another building to watch one of the technicians at work. At this time, he is opening oysters to see if they contain pearls. It is a careful, multi-step process that we see, and we also see him find about five pearls in the ten minutes or so we watch him. Then there is another guy cleaning oysters to be sold.
Naturally, our last stop is the retail store. While we are not in the market for pearls, Cathy does find a very pretty oyster shell with an attractive design drawn on it for $40. We do have some friends that purchase necklaces of black pearls. While these necklaces cost thousands of dollars, the price that they pay is way below market price, so they are getting a very good deal on a gorgeous piece of jewelry, and we celebrate their purchase with them.
Around 11:30, we hop back on the bus and are driven back to the pier. There are many vendors of souvenirs on the pier, and I buy a $20 t-shirt with a map of French Polynesia on it. I am a happy camper.
We board our tender and head back to the ship. While Rangiroa is a nice place with nice people, we are satisfied with our one activity. Lunch and naps follow as we await Insignia’s5:00pm departure. Steve looks up information on the sailing ship Wind Spirit. This ship is part of a small fleet of like sailing ships operated by Windstar Cruises, and this ship does cruises the begin and end in Tahiti. Later we find out that our friends Kari and Larry Noomen are taking a 7-day cruise next week. I can’t wait to hear about it!
The ship sails just before 5:00pm, and we watch as it slips through the narrow passage into the South Pacific. We have a Sea Day tomorrow as our next destination, Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas is 567 nautical miles away.
