WE TOUR WILLIE CREEK, LEARN ABOUT THE 'CULTURE' OF PEARLS AND WHAT CHANGED BROOME (24 - 26 MAY 2015)

If it had not been for our neighbour at the Tarangau Caravan Park we may never have taken what turned out to be one of the best tours we have experienced. 

Alex and his wife Jeanette winter in Broome each year where they work for the Willie Creek pearl farm group, he as a guide and she in one of their retail outlets. We got on famously, to the extent that we were quite prepared to accept Alex's advice that the boat tour to the Willie Creek facility was worth every cent of the $190 per head cost.

We were glad however that we had preceded this wonderful day with a visit firstly to the 'Pearl Lugger', the quasi-commercial museum in the pearl retail centre of Broome.

Here we had been able take a good look at the two restored luggers on display together with many other exhibits and information plaques (which provided a deal of material for my last missive).












Our later sortie to the excellent Broome Museum, a deceptively non-descript looking building,













the back yard of which overlooks the mangrove lined shoreline of Roebuck Bay, proved to be first class use of our time. 




Here I began to understand the true nature of pearls, how they are produced, classified and valued. 

In addition to the pearl related information, this museum presents an array of exhibits relating to the development of Broome, pearl shell 'objects-de-art' and many other odds and ends. 






Here, for example, is a photograph of one of the WA State Ships (a fleet I had first learnt about so long ago in Busselton), the Koolanda, alongside the Broome wharf at low tide










and here she is again, this time etched into the mother of pearl of a pearl oyster shell.










This, and the clock displayed next to it, were but two of the many such objects on display which were extremely popular in their day and gave the pearl shell its value during the initial years of the industry.






The museum also houses a highly detailed and interactive display relating to the Japanese air raid on the town about which I have previously written, including various recovered bits and pieces of some of the destroyed aircraft such as this Dornier engine.






But I digress.....the subject at hand is pearls. Here at the Broome Museum I gained my first understanding of just how pearls, either natural or cultured, are classified. It's simple, really, and when you think about it, logical. 








Size, 
















shape, 
















colour, lustre 









and surface are the five criteria by which the appeal (and ergo, value) of  a pearl are objectively judged, but as with all such things, it can also just be a matter of 'the eye of the beholder'.

I have to admit that I had previously thought that all pearls were round, were all the same colour and came only from salt water.....wrong. There is a thriving fresh water cultured pearl industry (not the same quality as those from sea water) and the size and colour of cultured pearls is very much a result of the type of host oyster and its environment.

Obviously there is little which can be done about the basis characteristics of each pearl...that is up to the oyster and the conditions in which it lives, but 'surface' is a different matter. As was pointed out in the museum, those skilled in the art of scraping away surface impediments were set to make a great deal of money, as did the redoubtable T.B. Ellies in his day. This came as something of 

a surprise to me until I later discovered that the two most important of all the criteria by which pearls are judged and valued are lustre and surface. Size, shape and colour are considered to be more a matter of personal taste.

As we learnt on our day tour to Willie Creek pearls, the modern production of cultured pearls is an enterprise in which high levels of scientific, manual and aquaculture husbandry expertise are the essentials of success. Before we delve more deeply into the fascinating world of the 'molested molluscs', we had to get there.....to Willie Creek that is.

Willie Creek is really a sea inlet on the coast some 40 kms north of Broome. It can be easily accessed by road, but it is much more fun to do so by sea, a trip which not only gets one there but provides marvellous views of the whole Cable Beach set-up (and you all know how I like 'perspective'!). 





And what a fun trip it was, beginning when the bus which picked us up at our park and deposited us on the flat, firm sands of the southern end of Cable Beach








near Ganthaume Point. Here our only company were a few punters launching small craft, those taking an early morning constitutional along the beach, and the Fong family, perched in the splendid isolation of their magnificent house high on the Point (yes, they do have a quid or two!)




The promotional blurb relating to this tour talks of transfers to the cruise boat by 'Sea Legs'....and indeed I had been wondering how we would get from shore to ship in the absence of any form of wharf or landing platform.




Simple really.....use an IRB with wheels. What a hoot this craft is. As it approaches the shore, three hydraulically operated wheels are lowered to allow it to traverse the sand with ease.....'sea legs' indeed!

Our transport to Willie Creek lay at anchor offshore.  This rather 'practical' looking craft was certainly fit for purpose. With its twin hulls and interesting bow design, the duel motors can push this vessel along at nearly 30 knots. It is a very slippery boat.

Our shore to ship transfers were completed in no time.















With a couple of 'Quells' hastily swallowed and her life jacket firmly secured, 'she who hates being on the water' was ready to go.

And 'go' we did. The seas were almost flat calm over a long, low swell. Our trusty skipper Ryan had us scooting along a a very good clip after a quick sortie out to the end of the Ganthaume Point where he pointed out some of the geological and other features of this part of Broome, including the dark stain on the rocks which shows the level of the high water during the huge spring tides.




I have already used some of the shots I took of Cable Beach during our transit and shall not bother again here.  Suffice it to say within less than an hour we were on our approach to the Willie Creek complex, shimmering on the distant shore in the morning sea and heat haze.

Although they are somewhat difficult to pick up, I would like to refer you to the white water of the waves which appear to be breaking near the shore.  This is an illusion of distance. The entrance to the Willie Creek inlet is surrounded by sand banks which present a serious trap for young players. The waves in this photo are quite a distance off shore.




The entrance channel winds its way past rows of these sand banks which prevent a direct passage into the inlet moorings. At one stage we were almost heading out to sea again as we dodged the lurking banks. 






In fact, the entrance to Willie Creek in anything other than a flat bottomed punt is only possible on certain tides......today was to be the last for over a week that our tour would be able to operate as it did. Even then a good local knowledge is critical. Notwithstanding my considerable experience at sea in various craft, I was struggling to pre-empt our course through this maze of sandy shoals.





Ryan had no such difficulty, although he did later admit he was certainly concentrating, and we were soon at our mooring in the sheltered waters of Willie Creek

where the local 'barge' took us to the landing dock.









Thanks to 'broomeaccommodation.com' this aerial shot of Willie Creek shows the entrance to the 'creek' curving through the sandbars 

and the pearl farm buildings on the right bank.

Once we had been dropped off at the landing dock it was but a short walk past a flat rock shelf















and on up the path to the Willie Creek restaurant, shop and interpretive centre.

Here our tour guide Ben, a qualified marine biologist from Old Blighty (what a way to spend a working holiday in Oz!) provided us with an extensive, highly informative and humorous explanation of the way in which pearls are cultured. Ben really was a whizz. He had that wonderful knack of presenting potentially complex scientific information in an entertaining and simple way.



I learnt very quickly that my previous belief that to produce cultured pearls one merely had to poke a bit of grit into some poor unsuspecting oyster, stand back whilst it launched into a frenzy of self-protection by coating the unwelcome intruder with increasing layers of nacre, and then helping oneself to the resultant pearl, was fanciful to say the least. I had the general principle right, but I was woefully lacking on detail.

Before launching into what I hope will be a reasonably succinct expose of this whole process, a spot of history. 

We previously left the Broome pearling industry as WWII approached. The war came and went and the effect it had on the industry (and the town) was significant. Whilst the five years of conflict had allowed the pearl oyster beds to recover and had wiped out the Japanese competition (literally in many instances....you may recall the fighting on the island of Palau was particularly vicious), all the luggers and the experienced divers had gone. Additionally, the development of a good, sturdy plastic button had severely dented the demand for pearl shell. Despite a small resurgence, by 1960 the traditional pearling industry had collapsed.





A new era was about to dawn....that of the cultured pearl. And here I discovered that I had been living in blissful ignorance of another very relevant historical fact for years. Despite the fact that Kokichi Mikimoto brought cultured pearls to the world in a large way, the real credit for pioneering the technique to the point that it became commercially viable belongs to another man altogether. 





The British ex-pat marine biologist, William Saville-Kent, had been working with a few of Broome's Pearling Masters for some time in the early 1900's to seed pearl oysters. He had advanced the technique significantly when two Japanese associates took this knowledge back to Japan. This was passed on to Mikimoto through a family connection. Mikimoto put it to very good use, adapted his earlier techniques which had not been altogether successful in producing a pearl of good shape, and patented the process (I suspect that there was a considerable amount of wheeling and dealing along the way!). The rest, as they say, is history and the name Mikimoto has been inextricably associated with the cultured pearl industry ever since. 

In 1921, back in Broome, one entrepreneurial Pearling Master and local luminary (he served as Broome's mayor for some time), Captain Ancell Gregory, had cottoned on to the potential of this cultured pearl business. He applied for a licence to culture pearls on a lease in Roebuck Bay. 

At this time the pearling industry in Broome was still harvesting and exporting over 60 percent of the world's natural pearls and it comes as no surprise to read that Gregory's rival pearling masters took a dim view of his proposal. They won the day.  Despite whatever clout he may have had, Gregory's enterprise was shut down by the Fisheries Department in 1922......so much for competition!  I suspect that there would have been some interesting moments in the Roebuck Pub over this period and for some time to come!

And the Government did not stop there. The WA Parliament passed a law prohibiting the production of cultured pearls in the State. Unsurprisingly this action by the authorities put paid to the development of the cultured pearl industry in Broome and elsewhere for many years.....until 1956 in fact, when the legislation was repealed and 'Pearls Pty Ltd' established a farm at Kuri Bay in the Kimberly near Derby.  Now there are 22 pearl farms licenced in Australia, 16 of which are located in Western Australia. What a turn-around.

The Banfield family, who bought the Willie Creek pearl farm in 1994, are no slouches. Lured off the land (wheat farming) through a business relationship with Lord McAlpine, they arrived in Broome in 1989 to initially set up and operate a bus service which included tours to Willie Creek. After buying the pearl farm they continued to expand their business which now includes the ownership of six showrooms in Willie Creek, Broome and Perth, The Pearl Lugger (which we visited previously) and Broome Sightseeing Tours.  Not bad for erstwhile cockies.




But back to the present and our tour. Ben explained how Broome's famous South Seas pearls are produced. Central in the process is the very large pearl oyster Pinctada maxima, and as you can see and its name suggests, it is a whopper. It produces either silver or gold coloured pearls of exceptional lustre.




Both wild and hatchery produced pearl oysters are used. They are initially held in large tanks on board 'seeding vessels' for four months to acclimatise to their new location before they are "relaxed and pegged open to allow a pearl technician to perform the operation in a sterile room on board the vessel".

Seeding is a highly specialised process.  Those engaged in this part of the operation are all scientifically qualified and most have had to work their way up the process chain from the more menial tasks before being let loose on the captive molluscs.

And it is not just any bit of gritty irritant which is placed into the oyster, nor it is just plonked anywhere. Let me again quote from the Willie Creek guide book.  "A small nucleus formed from the shell of the Mississippi mussel [a very dense shell which forms a weighty pearl] is inserted into an incision in the oyster's gonad [!!!!! author's exclamation]. This nucleus is coupled with a piece of nacre secreting mantle tissue, which develops into a sac around the the nucleus within the gonad.  The shell is then safely housed within a pearl panel and placed on the ocean floor to undergo a complex 'turning' process which encourages the development of a round pearl."

Why the gonad? Within the anatomy of the oyster this is the only spot where the planted pearl seed can be safely housed whilst the shells are rotated and moved, and beyond that I'll offer no further comment!

So there you have it. After a couple of years of constant husbandry, the oyster shell is again prised open and (hopefully) a beautiful pearl is extracted. But the poor old oyster is not done with yet.....it often has to deal with another attack on its vital parts for a second seeding. There is no rest for the wicked in the cultured pearl game, if you were born a Pinctada maxima that is.

After all this it was time for lunch. My brain was reeling with information and we were both happy to sit down to what proved to be an excellent meal, even if a little small in the typically yuppie vein.  

The tourist side of the Willie Creek farm is extensively housed,

and the large restaurant section caters for many,

which is just as well.  We were not the only ones visiting Willie Creek, but we knew which tables were ours......we had the blue water bottles!

After lunch it was back to our transfer boat where we were given a lesson on they way in which the seeded oysters are regularly cleaned and turned, all snug in their mesh support.  And would you believe....Dave, the skipper of this craft, not only grew up in Clare but has a brother in the SA Police whom I know very well!

After a quick tour of another section of the Willie Creek inlet it was back to the pearl shop where obviously it was hoped that we would be sufficiently enthused by the whole thing to be lured into a purchase or two. 

To my great relief, despite the fact that Liz was at one stage adorned with a necklace of significant quality, she decided that the price tag of $30,000 was just a bit beyond our resources at the moment!

As for me, well I just knew that pearls are not my thing!

This had been a very good day. But it was not quite over.....we still had the trip back to look forward to. As we made our way back out of the creek we passed the hulk of a seized illegal Indonesian fishing boat

before making passage at a good clip back along the coast.  It was time to sit up on the side and just enjoy the ride.

As we passed the Cable Beach resort the camel trains were assembling on the beach

and the daily procession of 4WD's were beginning to make their way down to the sands for sunset.

The sails were being hoisted on the cruising pearl lugger

and the southern end of Cable Beach was now crowded with vehicles bringing even more revellers to the beach for another Broome sunset experience.

As for us, well it was onto the trusty Sea Legs and back onto dry land once more, where this incredible craft was lowered on its hydraulic legs to allow us to disembark with dignity intact. I could not help reflecting just how similar this manoeuvre was to that of the camels as they plonk themselves down onto their knees to divest themselves of their passengers.

With the flick of a switch Ryan had this marvel back up again 

and heading out to sea whilst we rejoined our waiting bus for the ride back to camp.  

The Willie Creek boat day tour is a very slick operation indeed (unlike this blog which developed another mind of its own towards the latter part of it....apologies) Things did not miss a beat all day. In a nutshell...efficient, very informative and damn good fun. Let me end as I began...today had been worth every penny it cost and was a real highlight of our Broome visit.

THE EARLY DAYS OF THE BROOME PEARLING INDUSTRY - LUGGERS AND BRAVE BUGGERS (MAY 2015)

I must begin this blog with a warning, dear reader.....it has the potential to either fascinate you or bore you silly. Being in Broome, I was determined to learn all I could about the history of the pearl industry, and the more I delved, the more I realised just how little I really knew and of that, how much of it was not quite right. I had lived in blissful ignorance for many years.

Let me give you an example. I had always thought that pearls were the target of those lumbering across the seabed, but during the initial years of this endeavour, it was pearl shell (mother of pearl) which was the object of the exercise. The discovery of an actual pearl was just a bonus. Yet today, this has been completely turned on its head. 

So just what is the story of Broome pearling?  What changed the industry so dramatically? Why are the pearling boats called luggers? Why was Broome so very different from the rest of Australia? 

I was a man on a mission of discovery which I have pleasure sharing with you, but as I warned at the outset, for those whose interest in this subject is limited let me quote the warning of sports commentators (when a game in progress) to those who do not want to know the score....."Look away now!"

Let me put this into some context by beginning with a quote from the relevant Australian Government website.

"The pearling industry was a major economic force for over one hundred years in northern Australia and for business interests in the southern capitals from the 1850s onwards. However, alongside the development of the industry were stories of forced and indentured labour, danger and death."

Aboriginal folk had been fishing for, and trading, pearl shell long before the arrival of Europeans, but once they got here the settlers were quick to realise the value of the pearl fields. 

Why was this so? We have to remember that these were 'pre-plastic' days. Pearl shell and 'Mother of Pearl' were used extensively to make buttons and buckles, hair combs, jewellery, furniture inlays, cutlery and art objects. The appetite of the US and English clothing industries was voracious. This was the era of the industrial revolution and mass production. 

Huge profits were on offer (for example, in the late 1800's the fleets of one Thursday Island pearler had brought up shell worth over 30,000 pounds and 5,000 pounds worth of pearls and the Australian pearl shell fields were extensive......by this time we were supplying over half the world demand for shell.

Despite its later importance, Broome was something of a 'johnny-come-lately' as far as the Australian pearling industry is concerned.....it all really began in Shark Bay in the 1850's when large fields of shell were found in the shallow waters of the bay (something I discovered when in Denham some months ago).

Further large discoveries in the Torres Strait followed in 1868, and within ten years there were sixteen firms operating out of Thursday Island, all chasing pearl shell. In 1879 the Queensland colonial Government, which had by now recognised the potential value of this industry as a provider of income for the fledgling colony, annexed Thursday Island (nothing has changed!)  

The grounds of the Torres Strait were soon under fishing pressure and the search for pearl shell spread to the Kimberly Coast where further huge fields were discovered. By 1910 Broome had become the main focal point of the industry. The 400 or so luggers operating out of Roebuck Bay employed over 3,500 people. Broome was by now the largest pearling centre in the world. 





The pearl shell had been initially been fished by Aboriginal divers, ('qhatlas.com') who 'free dived', naked and without any breathing equipment,





but the expansion of the industry and the profits to be made encouraged large numbers of folk from other races to descend on Broome. As noted on the relevant website, "these boom times attracted large numbers of Europeans, South Sea Islanders and Asians who came for the adventure, the promise of work and the possibility of making their fortunes.......In Broome, the largest of these immigrant groups, however, were the Chinese. Not only did they come as pearlers, but also as cooks and shopkeepers, similar to the gold rush days".

Broome's Chinatown was born.  In addition to the Chinese, Broome's burgeoning population included Japanese, Malays, and Koepangers (from the Dutch East Indies). These were the working crews of the pearling fleet and the Chinese style architecture of many of the town's buildings coupled with the racial mix of its population meant that Broome had become a town like no other in the country. 

The 'pealing masters' who owned the boats were, in the main, European. Many were the sons of upper class English folk. After stint in the Royal Navy they were given a boat and told to make their fortunes, and for many, that is exactly what they did. The superior education and manner of the European skippers enabled them to manage their mixed race crews who did the dangerous work diving for pearl shell for very little pay. 






"The invention of diving suits revolutionised the pearling industry in Australia. Not only could divers go deeper than ever before, they could also stay underwater longer and collect more shell and pearls. These divers wore vulcanised canvas suits and massive bronze helmets and were lowered over the boat's side to spend hours underwater. 

On the bottom they struggled about in lead weighted boots, often almost horizontal as they peered through inch-thick faceplates into murky waters, frantically scooping oysters into bags because divers were paid by the amount of shell they collected."

Three cylinder, hand operated air pumps pushed air blow to the divers through flexible air hoses.









Apart from the air hose, the divers were also attached to the luggers by a lifeline which was managed throughout each dive by 'the Tender' who maintained constant 'touch' contact with his diver. For the diver below, the skill of his tender was critical. The two were often of the same nationality and each diver chose his own tender personally.

Signals were passed both ways by tugs on this line or the air pipe,













as these two exhibits in the Broome Museum detail.









The Japanese were by far the most skillful of the divers but this did not mean they made good money. 

"As the work was very dangerous, the European boat owners employed mostly Japanese divers. Many of the Japanese divers were used as indentured labour. This means that they were working for no money in order to repay a debt, usually their transportation to Australia. Divers were paid by the amount of shell they collected and because of the dangers involved, very few of these divers ever managed to work off their debt."

But as time went by the skill of the Japanese and their rise in Broome's society had some interesting social consequences. On the national scene, for example, Broome was made an exception to the 'White Australia Policy' which forbade any but Europeans to emigrate to Australia. Mind you this only came about after twelve British Navy divers, brought out especially to bolster the fleets, all died on the job. The Australian Government was nothing if not pragmatic.

Locally, the superior attitude of the Japanese and their treatment of the lesser skilled Koepangers erupted into violence on three occasions.....in 1907, 1914 and, in the worst incident, in the race riot of 1920, when only the armed intervention of Broome's European residents, many of whom were returned WW1 diggers and who were quickly sworn in as Special Constables, prevented wholesale slaughter.  As it was by the time order had been restored five Koepangers, two Japanese and one police officer lay dead.......but this is all another story.

Let's now have a closer look at how these massive amounts of pearl shell were harvested. The majority of the pearling fleet were boats know as 'luggers', a name synonymous with this industry......but why luggers? 


This is all to do with the way in which the sails are rigged. In this photo (courtesy of 'pinterest.com') you can see that the upper spar holding the top of the sail is angled across the mast and extends both behind and in front of it. This is a 'lug-rigged' sail which is an adaptation of the square rigged sails of earlier ships and, not surprisingly, these boats were called 'luggers'.

Broome's pearl luggers (thanks to 'news.com') are actually 'gaff-rigged' (the spars holding the tops of the sails are still rigged at an angle but do not extend forward of the mast) but because of the similarity in appearance to a lug-rigged sail, these boats are know as 'luggers'. 

So there you have it. Strictly speaking these pearling boats are 'gaff-rigged ketches', but what a mouthful that is!

And, as my play with the words of the title of this missive suggests, these luggers were manned by brave men. The collection of pearl shell was a very dangerous occupation. 

Apart from the ever constant risk of shark attack and fouled air hoses, in the early days very little was know about the crippling and often fatal effects of decompression sickness more commonly known as 'the bends'. The pressure of deep dives causes nitrogen to liquefy in the bloodstream. When a diver ascends too quickly, this gas forms bubbles in the blood which expand in the joints and the spine, pinching the nerves.  Apart from excruciating pain (often relieved somewhat by bending the arms, legs or whole body....hence 'the bends') paralysis and/or death could follow.

As early as 1905 it had been known that decompression sickness could be prevented by a slow, staged ascent rate where the amount of time coming up is equal to that spent below. This did not sit well with men who were being paid by the amount of shell they collected. Hanging idle beneath their luggers seemed like time wasted, and most ignored the risk.....to their collective peril. Between 1910 and 1914, for example, over 90 Broome divers died as a result of the bends.





Enter the decompression chamber, donated to Broome in 1914 by Heinke and Co. And the effect of this generosity? In 1915 only one diver died of decompression illness.

The other major threat to the safety of the pearlers was the weather. The waters off Broome are prone to the devastating effects of summer tropical cyclones. With no accurate forecasting, no radios to provide warnings and no engines to use to outrun the weather, fleets caught on the open sea when 'the devil winds' struck were no match for the elements. Cyclones decimated the fleets in 1887 (off 80 Mile Beach as previously detailed), again in 1910 and in 1935. These three cyclones alone accounted for a total loss of over 80 luggers and 300 crew.

But by 1935 other winds.....of change.....were blowing. Japanese diving off the island of Palau was flooding the market with pearl shell and the threat of war was looming. After Pearl Harbour (how apt!), all Japanese in Broome were interened and with the advance of their countrymen towards Australia, the pearling fleet was ordered south to Fremantle to prevent the luggers falling into enemy hands. Many didn't make it. Those which remained were burnt on the beach. The Broome pearling industry, as it had been, was over, for the time being at least, but it did survive albeit in a totally different form as we were to discover at the wonderful Broome Museum and on a great day out to Willie Creek Pearls.