What a lovely day. We wake early enough but don’t actually get ourselves going until past 10 am. I call Chessie to say that we are going ashore and they arrange to meet us on the dock.
Mike and I go ashore and are greeted by one of the German guys, Jorg, from Lady Ev VI, one of the other WARC boats. He has been staying on the island for two weeks while the boat has gone on to Tahiti and will join them again in Bora Bora. In the meantime, he acts as our unofficial guide. He has arranged to visit Dream Pearls, the pearl farm that Francois recommended so our first stop is their shop in the village to see if it can be arranged for the five of us to go as well. It can. I can’t wait. I am really interested in seeing how the grafting is done. We look around the shop and although there are lots of things I like, the only gold coloured pearls are single ones on pendant drops, which is exactly what I have already. There is a nice grey one, category A pearls, but it is too short, more of a choker than a necklace and one which is the right length but the pearls are category B and C, and just don’t look as good.
We wander through the village. It’s an incredible place. Like most of the atolls, we can hear and just about see the ocean on both sides even though we are walking up the main road. There is no rubbish anywhere apart from occasional piles of copra, no bottles or cans strewn by the side of the road, and the gardens are pretty. There are just over 700 inhabitants on Fakarava, nearly twice as many as there were ten years ago. There is a grocery store, a boulangerie, a snack bar, a hardware store, police, infirmary, in fact, a small version of everything you really need. It is a jewel of a place.
Even the Catholic church is beautiful, decorated with local island flair, with a bright blue, vaulted ceiling, mother of pearl mosaics, and shell garlands and bright tapestries everywhere. The pulpit is a beautifully smoothed out tree stump – I tried to get Mike to stand at it for a photo but he refused - I think he was worried that a bolt of lightning would strike him, atheist heathen that he is!
We visit another pearl shop where Jutta eyes up a very nice string of pearls, then, having reached the end of the village, we walk back and visit the supermarket and vegetable stall.
We go back to the boat for a drink and something to eat then return to the dock where Lulu Steiner is waiting with his minibus to take us to his pearl farm.
It is fascinating. He explains that the oysters are grown for three years before they are used for grafting. When they are removed from the sea, they are cleaned to remove all the parasitic life living on the outside, then taken inside where they are opened about a quarter of an inch and a wedge placed just inside.
They are then taken to the grafter who puts them in a clamp, inspects them, discards those which she suspects are not healthy enough then places a tiny piece of organic material (for additional nourishment) and the nucleus, around which the oyster will hopefully wrap layers of nacre to form a pearl. The three experienced grafters here can each graft 1200 oysters a day!
The oysters are then wired together on a string (each grafter’s work is marked by different coloured string) and placed within protective netting and hung outside in the sea before being taken to the oyster beds two kilometres away in the lagoon.
There they grow for about eighteen months before being harvested. Each pearl is x-rayed to determine the amount of nacre that has formed (it must be a minimum of 0.8 mm to meet the standard) and categorized. Anything below a category D is not able to be exported.
We visit the shop where Lulu sells single pears rather than jewellery and although they have no champagne coloured pearls, I select a trio of A grade pearls for a pair of earrings and a necklace drop, but get Lulu to take them back to the shop so that I can compare them with the necklace I saw and see which I want.
Lulu stops at the local supermarket (laughingly calling it Carrefour) and buys beer and fruit juices for us to consume back at his place which is behind the shop. While the others sit on the back patio overlooking the lagoon, I take ages deciding what to do, knowing that if I buy the three pearls, I will still want to get a string of champagne coloured pearls if I see them in Australia. Decisions, decisions, what is a girl to do?
Eventually I go with the bird-in-the-hand syndrome and Emilienne, Lulu’s wife (actually I think his real name is Lucien) wraps up and certificates the three beautiful pearls. They are steel grey with a pink tinge, completely round and perfect. Almost gem quality, but not quite.
Photo: My three beautiful pearls
Happy with my choice, we go back to Jeannius for a little lie down (Mike needs a cool, darkened room) before getting ourselves ready to go back to the village for dinner. When we arrive at the dock, the restaurant owner, Enoah, is waiting for us in his car, and when Jutta, Jochem and Tom arrive, we all pile in and off we go.
The Restaurant Teamayua is beautiful. Set on the edge of the lagoon it is decorated with coral, white stone, oyster shells and colour-washed driftwood. All around us, flame torches are lit to provide ambient lighting. The menu is great, the food even better (although very expensive), the music is to my taste and we have a lovely evening.
Unfortunately when it comes to paying the bill, we realise he doesn’t take plastic and just about have the cash to pay for it. Mike now has the equivalent of £4 left in his wallet and there are no banks or ATM machines until we get to Tahiti. Bang goes our pain chocolat from the boulangerie in the morning! As we sit after dinner, we can see black tipped sharks coming into the shallows beside our table and just gliding away.
And I say again, what a lovely day!
Love the pearls!!! Sounds like a wonderful little island.
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