South Sea Pearls at Cygnet Bay

Kooljaman is the Bardi Aboriginal name for Cape Leveque, 220km north of Broome at the tip of the Dampier Peninsula. It is Aboriginal land and has a an automated light house sitting at the highest point of the peninsular with stunning vibrant blue azure sea on either side.

12km to the South East is Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm, home to the famous Australian South Sea Pearl. The drive from Kooljaman to Cygnet Bay is fun as the majority of the road is orangey red undulating sand.

We arrive at Cygnet Bay just before 10.00am and as the next pearl farming tour is not until 11.30am, we head up to the restaurant and infinity pool overlooking the bay for a coffee and slice of lemon tart. The pool has a spectacular view and it’s not long until the lizard finds a sun lounge.

Our tour guide, Terry is a 4th generation pearler of Aboriginal Indonesian origin and has lived and worked at Cygnet Bay all his life. He’s a tallish slim man with a great smile and a story to tell.

So the story of the Australian pearl begins 20,000 years ago as evidence shows that Aboriginals on the West Kimberley coast collected mother of pearl shell for cultural and customary purposes.

In the 1880’s, the first industry for mother of pearl began and was fished in and around Broome and Cygnet Bay. What’s significant about the Dampier Peninsula and Kimberley shore line is that it’s the only place that the Pinctada Maxima Pearlshell (the largest pearlshell in the world) can be found in abundance and it’s renowned for its size and lustre.

By 1910, Cygnet Bay and Broome were supplying some 80% of the world’s mother of pearl and most of the world’s buttons made from the shell came from Broome.

High quality natural pearls are rare indeed... one in a million, so the pearling industry in Australia survived on building a viable industry out of the mother of pearl shell alone.

Meanwhile, in 1899, Mikimoto from Japan was the first person to successfully culture pearls and keeping his secret safe, his Akoa pearls dominated the industry for years to come.

In Australia, cultured pearling was made illegal to protect the mother of pearl industry but this was repealed in 1949 when the advent of plastic saw the end of demand for mother of pearl buttons.

During this transition period, a visionary pioneer and founder of Cygnet Bay Pearls, Dean Brown purchased a wooden lugger in 1946 and set sail for the Kimberley to pursue his dream of becoming a pearler. He established himself at the tip of the Dampier Peninsular around a natural port called Shenton Bluff, a pearler camp from the 1880’s.

His sons Bruce and Lyndon Brown joined Dean and set about unlocking the secrets of cultured pearls. In 1960, after great fortitude and experimentation, Lyndon became the first non-Japanese person in the world to successfully master the technique of growing cultured pearls and the first Australian South Sea Pearl was born.

Now what’s so special about the Australian South Sea Pearl? Well the pearls are of the very highest quality due to the pinctada maxima pearlshell and the pristine waters of Cygnet Bay, producing outstanding lustre, shape and size.

The market demands a preference for white round pearls with high grade lustre and the Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm produces many of the world’s finest pearls. In fact, the world’s largest perfectly round pearl at 22.24mm in diameter comes from Cygnet Bay Oyster Farm and is showcased at their Broome pearling shop (See footprint image).

Terry explains the process behind cultured pearling. A small round nuclei made from mother of pearl or Mississippi rock oyster shell is inserted into the pearlshell. The pearlshell secretes nacre around the foreign object in layers creating over time a pearl. There’s much science that goes into the process and Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm has achieved a 90% success rate with its methods and up to a 40% of its cultured pearls are the elusive round shape.

It’s all very interesting and Terry selects a pearlshell and opens it in front of us to find a small pearl inside. No jackpot today but like a box of chocolates, you just don’t know what your gonna get! No worries, he brings out some display pearls to show us at the end and we visit the display shop to view the jewellery.

After the tour, we enjoy lunch in the restaurant overlooking the bay with squid and asian infused popcorn chicken. It’s been a great morning and another highlight of the trip.

We head back to Kooljaman and walk to the Eastern beach for a lovely swim croc free and then to the Western beach for sunset to soak up this spectacular coastline.Read more