What is pearl hunting?

Question

i know what pearl hunting is, its a method of getting pearls. But how do they get the pearls? how do they hunt?

Answer 1

G'day mate,

I am a pearl diver north of Broome in Western Australia. We dont call it pearl hunting, but drift diving. We get dragged behind a large (20 to 30 metre) vessel 6 divers across, about 5 metres apart - depending on visibility. we breath on long air hoses and dive down to about 40 metres. We do up to 10 dives a day for 40 minutes, followed by breathing pure oxygen as a decompression stop to try to avoid the bends.

As the vessel steams at about 4 knots we are able to survey the bottom looking for Pinctada maxima. These are the largest pearl shell on earth and produce the beautiful silver and gold pearls.

Generally, pearl shells are picked off the bottom for seeding, so we implant a nucleus which over a period of 2 years produces a pearl. Natural pearls or "keshi" pearls are very rare, and would not be commercially viable to dive purely for these.

Keshi pearls in the past were an added benifit to the harvest of natural pearl shell which had the major market of button production. When plastics were invented, the price of mother of pearl dropped significantly. The pearl industry dropped out of favour until a japanese company called Mikimotto invented the seeding technique we use today.

Hope that answered your question

Answer 2

To drive into the sea.