Malcolm Douglas - Australia - The Pearling Coast (1986)

[Music] hello i'm malcolm douglas and i'm sitting on the old pearling watford broom now everyone's heard of broome it's situated on the far north west coast of western australia and it's the pearling capital of the world yes that's true the old traditional pearling luggers that served the industry well for almost 100 years have almost disappeared now but the pearlers are still out there looking for the elusive pearl shell their boats are different their techniques are different but they're still after the shell they're not after the really big show anymore they're after the small mother of pearl shell to take to their farms so they can culture pearls for all along this coast the pearlers grow the biggest and best cultured pearls in the world now not many people see the pearl is working because they're away from broome but i live in broome and the pearlers are my friends and i know the industry well so for the next few months i'm going to travel with the pearlers on their boats and to their farms so i can show you some of the secrets of this magical pearling coast broom the port of pearls a hundred years old and so different from any other place in australia this magical old town sprawls beside roebuck bay the forefathers of this polyglot community came to seek fortune from malaya celebi's japan and the philippines with the aborigines and europeans they worked on laggers diving deep for the elusive pearl shell in 1688 the buccaneer and explorer william dampier found pearl shell when he sailed along the northwest coast but it was not until the 1850s that the first shell was collected in shark bay the pink tarda maxima was the biggest and most valuable shell and broom with a cello tidal creek soon became the pearling capital of the world within 50 years pearling was the fastest growing industry in western australia the mother of pearl was shipped overseas to supply the lucrative button market [Music] occasionally a natural pearl provided a lucky bonus in the fabulous days before world war one broom grew spreading out from the shores of roebuck bay 400 boats collected shell and during the layup season dampier creek was crammed with luggers broom was a boom town with a population of 5 000 boisterous boozing citizens in 1914 when war broke out in europe the pearl shell industry collapsed overnight shell was worthless and the master purlers were ruined after the war they battled on until the depression affected the demand for buttons again then the second world war completely crippled the struggling enterprise when buttons were made from the newly invented plastics the pearl shell industry seemed doomed it was miraculously rescued from total demise by the development of the cultured pearl once again there was a reprieve for broome and today pearling's bigger than ever malcolm a resident of broome has been able to capture the mysteries of the fabulous pearl on film the backbone of pearling for 100 years were the luggers graceful craft usually 60 feet long and catch rigged under full sail they were a magnificent sight most of the luggers were constructed in broome and the remnants of the once huge fleet were still being refitted as recently as the 1970s at the end of the wet season the fleet sailed from broome out to the most prolific shell grounds life on board was tough conditions were cramped in the hours long for over a hundred years the copper helmets and rubber suits enabled the divers to descend deep into the eerie silent world below the sea [Applause] at first light the crew were already busy on deck preparing for the day's work the divers had to be helped into the cumbersome bulky equipment they worked in their thick rubber suits until sundown as the sun rose the diver was ready to hit the water he adjusted his air valve as the lead weights and heavy boots dragged him down his lifelines to the surface were the orange air hose and the heavy manila rope [Music] on the sea floor he filled his suit with air and lumbered slowly through the murky gloom when shell was spotted he signaled to his tender for more rope [Music] if the seabed was barren he called for a fast drift and was pulled roughly along covered with weed and coral growth shell was easily spotted by an experienced diver a faint outline in the mud was all that could be seen with his basket full the diver gave the ascent signal and closed off his air valve his suit filled with air and he rose to the surface a lugger supported two divers and the japanese and malays were the best for the job the diver had a break while the lager was repositioning for another drift over the shell beds the shell scrubbed clean was packed in bags ready for sorting back in broome the divers skilled and courageous were regarded with war and respect a good diver could make a fortune in a few seasons returning to his village a wealthy and honoured man but in the early days the risks were enormous and the chances of survival slim nothing was known about decompression sickness a painful death by paralysis that struck when the diver worked too long at a great depth the diver surfaced unaware that on his return to the lager he would suddenly double up with the pain of the bends as nitrogen bubbles lodged in his joints between 1910 and 1917 145 divers in the broome fleet died and many more were crippled for life the broom cemetery today displays a stark reminder of the tragic loss of life before the cause of this agonizing death was discovered by 1918 the mystery of the bins was solved and with the installation of a decompression chamber in broome the number of deaths dropped dramatically although some of the divers chose to ignore the new regulations and continue to take enormous risks hoping to collect more shell than the other crews [Music] when the boats returned to port the small jetties were a hive of activity the shell was laboriously unloaded and dragged to the sorting sheds [Music] nowhere else in australia were so many nationalities indentured to support an industry and after three generations this has given broome a unique character every year on the eve of the august moon this multi-racial community gets together for the shinju matsuri the festival of the pearl [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and where else would a chinese dragon and a scottish pipeband parade together [Music] broom's population swells to 15 000 when everybody comes to town for the shinju matsuri the week-long celebration has become the most exciting small town festival in [Applause] [Music] australia [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and when it's all over the crowds disperse the tourists continue their round australia travels and broom settles down again to its own easy going pace [Music] [Music] [Music] hmm the mild climate delightful beaches and oriental influence due to a century of pearling has put broome on the tourist map [Music] an old streeter and mailboat lies kareem awaiting a buyer for the luggers have now been superseded by faster bigger more efficient vessels south from broome in the shallow waters of the 80 mile beach the last broome lugger the john louis b3 is still at work although the diving techniques have been updated gone forever at the old copper helmets the men now dive in wetsuits goggles flippers and trailing a light air hose without adequate facilities on board the old boat the shell collected during the season has been stored in dumps on the seabed the men working in appalling visibility collect the shell for transferal to the farm plastic bags are inflated to lift the laden baskets to the surface these days only small shells allowed to be taken for culturing pearls packed in containers it can be kept alive for several hours out of the water back in broome rudy van der croft is taking off in his de havilland beaver float plane he's to rendezvous with the john louis b3 to pick up their shell an innovation that the early pearlers could not have imagined in their wildest dreams it's a blustery day with wind gusts to 30 knots so the lugger skipper heads for the sheltered waters off the 80 mile beach [Music] it's always an exhilarating time landing on choppy seas the crew works quickly for planes are expensive to hire and before the winds increase the pilot with a heavy load needs to get airborne as soon as possible [Music] back in broome the shell will be transferred to a cessna for the flight to the pearl farm after a number of flights all the shells been offloaded and the b3 heads north to the farm at deepwater point in king sound the john lewis is the last traditional lugger working off broome and when it goes a special part of australian seafaring history will be lost forever the men relax landing some nice spanish mackerel lenny a torres strait islander and a top diver takes one from malcolm for tea at broome malcolm leaves the lugger and heads overland to the pearl farms along the way he stops at beagle bay to visit the church the most inspiring building in the north west in 1914 a catholic order of german priests were interned on the mission and throughout the war years built the church as a confirmation of their faith the aboriginal community cut the timber made the bricks and searched the shallows for shells pearl shell inlays glow in the reflected light the altar the tabernacle and even the floor display the totemic designs of the local tribes interwoven with symbols of the christian faith it's surely a remarkable building but being so far from the main road it's seen by few travelers we've just reached norman creek at the top of beagle bay now what we're going to do in the morning when it's a lot calmer than it is now we're going to run our dinghy out here and about 30 nautical miles out to the lacipedes you got a bit of that gear then and when we get to the lacipedes we're going to camp there for a couple of days you normally can't go to the laci peach because it's a nature reserve but i've got a permit to go out there velocipedes is very famous because in the early days the pearlers used to use it as a base but let's wait until we get out there and have a look at it [Applause] while waiting for the winds to drop malcolm and his mates run a net out in the sheltered waters of norman creek it doesn't take long to collect the feed of magnificent whiting many of these areas along the coast are either aboriginal reserves wildlife sanctuaries or pearling leases and cannot be entered without permission the following morning conditions are karma and malcolm heads due west for 20 nautical miles to the lacipede islands low sandy spits that have played an important part in the history of pearling these islands are the main breeding grounds for the gregarious booby gannets it's late in the season and the fledgling boobies launch themselves unsteadily into the air well these are the lacipede islands quiet and remote now it's a nature reserve and you're not supposed to come out here without a permit although some people do but the lacipedes have got a notorious and bloody past very few people know that this was the only part of australia that was ever taken over by a foreign power yes our friends the americans they raised their flag here man about 1876 they're after this bird droppings guano we're going to dig it up take it across to south america in fact they got a load out of here well that caused an international incident and of course it was finally handed back to australia and in front of me i've got this what appears to be an old building and this is another clue to the past of the lacipedes in the early days some of the perlers they went over to the mainland and they captured young aboriginal boys and girls teenagers and they kept them here like a bank of slaves and very few people in australia realize this then the other perlis came up from cossack and robin the pearling towns down south here they traded for these teenagers they took them down there to die for pearl shell the peelers would row around in their boats taking the teenagers with them tipped them over the side in the shallow water make them feel around on the bottom for pearl shells they came up with any shell the shell was put in the boat they had to dive again but if they came up with that shell the pearl had a big wadi hit them on the knuckles and on the head send them down for shell it's a terrible story but it's true within a few years this barbaric practice was forbidden once again the islands became a tranquil sanctuary for seabirds disturbed only during the pearling season when the waters around the lacipedes proved to be one of the most prolific shell grounds of the northwest coast in their brief contact with the islands the black birders introduced an unwelcome rodent and now camping on the islands is extremely unpleasant the men have had a sleepless night and footprints through the camp plainly show the cause of the disturbance rat tracks malcolm chase has won it's rattus rattus the common rat an ugly animal they're an ecological disaster preying on the breeding sea birds rats show no mercy these are baby cormorants if the parents leave the nests unguarded the rats attack the rats are able to escape the fierce heat by tunneling under the hard crust of bird droppings that's built up over thousands of years the babies wrapped in a white ball of fluff look bigger than their parents showing no fear of malcolm the chicks posed for the camera growing rapidly they go through a dowdy scruffy adolescent stage in the evenings the adults returned to regurgitate the catch for their impatient young malcolm and his mates plan a fishing trip of their own for the following morning fishing's pretty good on the pearling coast and a lot of my mates ask me what's my favorite lure well i'll show you one of my secrets the old sunshine milk tin lid and when you run out of lures you can pull out the this bit of foil that's in the top put it back on the lid and grab that piece of foil and wrap it around the hook they don't laugh because this does really make a an exceptionally good lure right oh now we just get that around there twist it around just shape it up like a fish now i'll work on this a little bit more for a couple of minutes put it down there crimp some lead on it so it'll stay in place i know you're all shaking your heads with disbelief but i tell you what the fishing's very good up here right oh now i've just got to get a little bit of a tail on it right there we are top lure let's go and catch a fish within minutes malcolm's landed a nice trevally on his tin lid lure well sunshine milk 10 lid is working well we are oh how's that for a fish you get knocked up friday all you fishermen next time you come up the coast here make sure you bring your old tin lids it was not far from here on the lacipedes but one of the great tragedies of the broome pearling fleet occurred was out here in the lacipede deeps between the islands and the mainland there were 29 luggers working the bottom they're on a great patch of shell so they angered there overnight ready to put the divers down first thing in the morning not long after sundown the skippers noticed in the north fork lightning so they said to their men anger's up sail's up let's head for the mainland but they couldn't move because it was glassy calm like it is this morning and in those days they had no auxiliary engines so they just sat there and as the hours passed a cyclone hit and in the morning of the 29 luggers there only three still floating and 140 men died only one japanese crewman clinging to wreckage reached the islands alive returning to the mainland malcolm heads for deepwater point in the sheltered expanse of king sound here he meets up with the lagger b3 again the crew are retrieving the shell from the dumps on the sea floor this is the shell that was collected off the 80 mile beach and left on the bottom near the farm for several months to recover from the stress of collection and the plane journey as the sediment rises visibility drops to a few centimeters and only an experienced diver can work all day under these conditions after retrieval the oysters are hung in baskets ready for the technician will operate on each one to produce a cultured pearl a cultured pearl is only slightly different from a natural pearl what actually makes a natural pearl well let's just have a look at the small pearl shell here now just imagine if that pearl shell is down on the bottom it's all covered with seaweed of course and it's open like that on the bottom and the mantle the orange section that actually makes the white substance the narker is right up here on the edge now the shells lying on the bottom and just imagine a fish swimming along here and as it passes it flicks its tail and a piece of mud or shell will lodge in on that mantle let's just open it up and have a look now this mantel is closed up when it's in the water this section here it can be orange or black is open right out now the piece of mud or shell or whatever it is is lodged on that mantel now the first thing the animal tries to do is reject it and if it can't reject it well then it starts coding the matter with the white substance and that's called narca and that's what pearls are all about now in this one you can see here just next to the little crab a small pearl now that's a natural pearl that has formed there something's gone in landed on the mantle you can't get it out that's the animal can't get it out so it starts coating it and the longer it stays there the bigger the pearl and that's why natural pearl is worth a lot of money because they're very rare you might only get one in every 20 or 30 000 shell now with the cultured pearl it's a slightly different process we'll take the shell and open it up slightly now there it is now you'll see this down in the shed what they do is they put a wedge in there and they take a nucleus they've got one here it's actually a piece of shell all the way from the mississippi river they collect this shell and they grind it up into like a ball bearing size and they send them from japan to australia now what the technician does he gets that and he places it inside the animal let's just open this up there we are well it's actually on this side here so he drops it in very carefully places it near the stomach of the animal and he cuts a piece of mantle either from this animal or from another animal just a small piece and he places it right next to that nucleus and this tiny little piece of mantle continues living and it starts coating that nucleus with the mother of pearl and after two years you've got the brewing pearls the biggest and best cultured pearls in the world on the foreshore is the heart of the pearl farm the operating shed the shell brought in from the floating raft each morning is placed in a shallow trough of circulating sea water as each oyster begins to open a wedge is jammed into the gap to make room for the technician's tools the japanese are no longer the top divers but they're still a vital part of the industry for they have the knowledge and skill to seed the oysters the technicians all have their own special secrets but fuji allowed malcolm to watch him working first the edge of the mantle is cut from a healthy mollusk it's the mantle that creates the lustrous naked the strip is sliced in a small piece placed between the foot retractor muscle and the intestine of the host oyster to encourage it to coat the nucleus with the nucleus in place the clamps are removed and the oyster swiftly closes the baskets of shell are suspended from the raft until the divers are ready to place them in selected areas in the claustrophobic gloom 15 meters down on the muddy sea floor the real back-breaking work begins steel posts are laboriously driven into the mud so the baskets of shell can be contained in rows every second day for 50 days each basket's turned so that the naked forms evenly around the nucleus the oysters are then hung on plastic poles and cleaned every few months in two years each shell should contain a lustrous pearl malcolm will return to the farms for the harvest but now he's heading out to the graveyard a dangerous area of king's sound where many divers perished in pursuit of pearl shell crossing king sound is hazardous the awesome power of the dropping tide surges past the rocks like a river in flood [Music] the waters of king sound have always been notoriously dangerous but the early pearlers had their preferred bays and locations for picking up shell and there's one particular place that they used to go because there's always huge mother of pearl huge shell they take their luggage in and anchor on the slack tide that's just between say high tide and low tide before it changes and there's a period of about half an hour when there's not so much movement of the water the diver would go down in his full suit he'd start walking along the murky bottom and he'd find this huge shell so he'd be signaling to his tender let out more rope move me along stop me here give me more air and he'd be working frantically to pick up this huge shell he'd be filling his basket up and of course he'd get so carried away the next thing the tide would change and then go from virtually no current to a rushing tide almost like a a moving river under the sea and he'd be signaling frantically to the tender pull me up pull me up but of course the water pressure was so strong he was getting dragged along the bottom and the next thing his air hose and his rope would be tangled up around a big coral outcrop or a rock big coral bomby and he'd be stuck there and he'd be signaling away and he couldn't get pulled up and all the guys on board would be trying to lift him up and of course in the end they'd lose a diver and to this day if you look on the nautical maps up in the top of king sound you'll see an area marked the graveyard because the early pearlers lost so many divers there in fact a few years ago the old body aborigines told me a story that years ago when a young japanese diver went down in the graveyard he's moving along and he's picking up shell and he came to a suit a full diving suit with a helmet and everything lying on the bottom and he looked in and he saw the skull of a diver still in the suit he's terribly frightened and cause he signaled to his men to pull him up and to this day the japanese divers have never gone back to the graveyard the graveyards are cliff-locked harbour with a narrow entrance the country around is harsh and to this day uninhabited along the lonely coastline disintegrating and forgotten are the graves of many japanese divers [Music] there's a deceptive calm at the moment it's high water when the tide changes it churns up dangerous foaming seas that trap so many of the early divers beneath the surface the warm tropical waters team with fish one of the most spectacular is the anemone or clownfish they're entirely dependent on the sea anemones for protection the tentacles of this flower-like animal are covered with thousands of small stinging cells capable of killing any other fish with an immunity to the poison the very territorial anemone fish spend most of their time chasing one another before retreating into the tentacles of their host [Music] the gregarious and playful dolphins race malcolm's boat back across king sound to one of the oldest pearl farms on the coast at signet bay the men working on the raft are operating on oysters that are too old for a nucleus and so a plastic half spheres glued to the shell the shells kept in baskets below the raft until it's needed the technician eases the mantle from the shell and up to a dozen beads are glued in place within nine months the irritation has been coated with naked so although not so valuable half pearls are always in demand for modern jewelry [Applause] bruce farley from roebuck deep pearls grows some half pearls each year for his buyers after they're cut from the shell it's up to the imagination and artistry of the jeweller to create the finished pieces before heading back to broome malcolm's keen to catch some fish for the crocodiles at his research station craig drags in a good tuner and now the barracuda are on the bite out in roebuck bay off broom the harvest's in progress and the pearlers are reaping the benefit of their hard work huge expenses and great risks the big operators now work off their own boats out at sea over their leases the shell seated two years earlier is collected by the divers the baskets are quickly filled and the heavy load brought to the surface with air filled bags right there after cleaning the oysters are stored in huge tanks with fresh continuously circulating seawater [Music] upon opening they're wedged and passed to one of the japanese technicians [Music] methodically from each shell he lifts a glistening pearl if the mollusk is still young and healthy it's reseeded with a nucleus and returned to the bottom for a further two years shell too weak or too old is rejected by the technicians for re-seeding and will be sold for mother of pearl buttons the owner of the farm probes for the cultured pearl before cleaning the shell strict control of the industry limits the amount of shell taken this has led to a worldwide shortage of shell for ornaments and buttons [Music] so another lucrative spin-off is the sale of pearl shell meat this is the mussel that holds the oyster shut dried it's used in gourmet cooking the real prize at the end of each day are the exquisite perfectly round pearls those with blemishes are worth only a few dollars but the best will bring several thousand dollars each the harvest goes on for weeks and the pearl farms now gross millions of dollars every year today the pearling industry is bigger than ever the luggers have all but disappeared replaced by big modern boats the most radical of these is a giant catamaran owned by signet bay pearls the biggest operator in australia is paspali pearls their diving techniques are very efficient with up to eight divers working at once off the paspaly pearl the divers are now full-time professionals many of them are ex-abalone divers who've moved to broome for the good money in warmer climate the cumbersome full diving suits have disappeared goggles have replaced the helmet and flippers the boots although the modern diver still uses the traditional basket the new breed of divers are tough and incredibly fit swimming for eight hours a day with only short breaks the ropes attached to the boat are each man's lifeline moving along just above the seabed the diver searches for the camouflaged shell among the seaweed sponges and coral [Music] [Music] without the rope he'd quickly tire and become disoriented [Music] it was 1971 when the new techniques were first tried off broome and within two seasons the old hardhat divers had gone forever the risks working for shell are great divers still at times get the bends although now decompression chambers are available the dirty water strong currents sharks and sea snakes are ever present dangers the mothership paspali 2 a magnificent modern vessel rendezvous with the passpali pearl the paspali company has a licence to collect around a hundred thousand pearl shells in a season each shell is now seated immediately on the boat and returned to the bottom on long lines to recover for several months then it's all moved to pearling leases east of darwin it's a huge operation that must be carried out quickly and efficiently before the shell dies the baskets retrieved from the long lines are loaded on board cleaned and placed in seawater tanks for the journey to the northern territory this highly efficient operation is a far cry from the old days when the sail powered luggers first worked the coast and a lugger would send down one diver for a few ton of shell the end result is of course the pearl regarded by many as the most beautiful gem in the world malcolm with his friends among the pearlers has been invited to watch the grading and sorting of the harvest a breathtaking spectacle few people ever see on the table several million dollars worth of gleaming pearls and that's just a small percentage of the total number produced in a season [Music] nowhere else in the world can such magnificent gems be grown the color size and luster makes the highest grade immensely valuable of the thousands of pearls grown every year only a few are top grade compared with a number of highest quality diamonds large perfect cultured pearls are very rare pearls that grow abnormally ending up as weird and wonderful shapes are called keshish and are in demand for distinctive modern jewelry [Music] and so from the humble oyster come the flawless gems for this exquisite necklace valued at around 150 000 s dollars [Music] no one can predict the future of the pearling industry cyclones periodically wreck the farms boats are lost and the shell beds can be instantly wiped out by huge seas on some farms the pearlers are fighting a disease that's killing much of the shell but whatever the problems australia's purlin coast will always produce the best pearls in the world [Music] you

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Length: 46min 30sec (2790 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 01 2020