Monkey Mia Dolphins and the Pearl Farm

Monkey Mia Dolphin Interaction

Today I left Greg in bed at 7.15am and headed up to Monkey Mia in the early morning light for a short time.  (Guessing Greg may find time to do a little of something and a lot of nothing and have a really great morning too *lol*)

Arriving in Monkey Mia I purchased my pass for the MM Centre and went through to the jetty and beach area.
This was what I found on the other side :

After a short wait, several dolphins came in to the area just in front of these people waiting to interact with them.  The dolphins in the program are on a strict feeding regime so that they don't rely wholly on being fed but spend most of the day out in the open water, feeding their young, catching food and teaching the young ones how to survive.

The young kids were lucky to see this dolphin come in so close.  It snuck behind the ranger in the hat and blue shorts while he wasn't watching, causing much laughter and fun in the crowd as the dolphins are not supposed to be so close to the public.

Something I only learnt here was that as mammals, they are able to catch our common cold from us.

The dolphins are truly beautiful animals, and it is no wonder people flock to this place to be with them, but for the well-being of the dolphins (and also the safety of excited children) it is understandable that contact between the people and the dolphin is limited to only 3 or 4 people being able to feed a fish to one dolphin.  Each day there is around this number of people, and often times the dolphins will come in 2 or 3 times in a morning.
This little girl was chosen from the crowd after everyone was asked to move out of the water and after the dolphin took it's fish offering from her hand, her eyes were so round you could hardly see her face *lol*  The care-takers do ask the public if they have had a turn another day to please step aside to allow another person the opportunity and also if anyone sees someone who has already had a turn on another day to tell the care-takers so they can chose another person.  The children mostly have the chance which is lovely, and an overseas visitor with a large camera was asked if he would like to feed the dolphin and he almost cried with emotion.  A very moving experience that was to see. 
After the interaction talk, 4 people are chosen to feed 4 dolphins, or 5 if 5 dolphins come in or only 1 if one comes in.  It all depends on the dolphins as it is their area *lol*  (and they sure are proud looking too!)

Calling an end to the interaction time, this dolphin gave us all a very flippy farewell!




Following the first interaction, my ferry lift arrived from the Blue Lagoon Pearl Farm and I and 3 German visitors stepped aboard and headed over with Nick and his border collie pup, Jade.

Blue Lagoon Pearl Farm is the only "working" pearl farm of it's kind and the only one producing the authentic "black" pearl.  I found out that Black Pearls can be black, white, pink, yellow.  It isn't the pearl that is black, but the mollusc itself.  (eg:  Broome pearls are grown in molluscs almost the size of a dinner plate and very pale cream to white).  Blue Lagoon pearls are grown in black molluscs, and many are only hand size shells.

Gary giving a demonstration of how their black pearls are developed and the different type of molluscs used in the pearling industry.
The large one at the front is the kind used in
Broome and they produce the white/cream pearl.

Blue Lagoon  Pearls use the Angel Wing mollusc which is very dark to black and the pearl produced from these can vary from black, to rainbow, to creamy pink/white/blue and yellow to white.

Opening this shell Gary started to explain how the seeding of pearls is done.

These two photos show how the mollusc is seeded, but the shell is never opened more than about 5 mm and all seeding is done with long handled instruments reminiscent of dentists' tools.

This is a new form of seeding in the Angel Wing shells (which incidently produce absolutely beautiful flesh which can be eaten raw or cooked just like oysters)

The unusual looking item in the shell is actually a Lightning Ridge Opal and they are also using Kalgoorlie Gold Nuggets as well.  It has taken about 4 years to work out how to do this seeding without the shell expelling the foreign object, and once removed and polished it is a combination of the opal or gold surrounded by the mother of pearl (exquisite, and developed right here in Monkey Mia, leaders in world pearl seeding).

This is the crew opening the older shells and extracting the Angel Wing piece for the resident jeweller (son of the owners of the Pearl Farm and developer of the bacteria additive below - he was also on Inventor of the Year show)

 The Water cleaner came about because the farm needed to clean the shells growing the pearls about every two weeks.  Rob did a bit of experimenting and has come up with a product that means the shells only need cleaning once or twice in a 12 month period.  After that, they tested the product in salt and fresh water pools and aquariums and it has a huge impact on the reduction of maintenance cleaning of filters etc.  About to hit the retail market, I know I'll be one of the first to implement the product  with my purchase on board the pontoon today, and hopefully my tanks will be easier to maintain.

A shell opened while we were there with a natural black pearl (quite common in white, but not so often in black)

After the tour of the pontoon, the farms ferry took us back to the mainland and I headed back to see how Greg's day was (and to tell him I did not buy the beautiful $1800.00 black pearl and diamond pendant, or the $1260.00 one either *sniffle, sniffle*)

Take care all and see you in Carnarvon..............