Vietnam's Lobster kingdom! 5000 Floating Lobster Farms - How Do They Even Work?

Vietnam has a lobster Kingdom Lobster farming is a thing all along the Central Coast of Vietnam but the undeniable heart of lobster land is here suan yai Bay in full in Province so that seems like a stupid amount of lobster to me [Music] once a tucked away fishing Village on the Central Coast is starting to thrive yeah it's a bit of attractive get to your best bet is by train but once you arrive you can see this place is on the upswing what was once a tiny fishing Village is now a small bustling City [Music] behind me is a lobster loading station essentially this is a large wholesale sort of roadside Market where all of the lobster come in from the boats they're packaged into small plastic crates and shipped to China oh and these days it's all about Lobster baby it's harvest season and lobster Farmers here are in full swing boat after boat Barrel after Barrel the lobsters are hoisted up to the roadside sorted by size weighed grouped packed and loaded into large trucks equipped with transport aquariums this is what we're here for some kind of tropical Lobster in Australia we'd call these craze so this whole style station has a few different steps first of all they use this large motorized trolley to unload the lobsters off the boats and ship it directly up to the Sorting station behind me basically the local farms bring it directly in from the farm by boat to this sort of just Rocky beachfront they actually keep them alive by tying them off underwater at the front of the boat pretty fast it's pretty Furious there are tons and tons and tons of lobster coming in this morning it's wow just the volume that they're putting through so behind me there's a few separate stages here as they first get unloaded from the larger trays they come off the boats they're sorted into size they then passed along to the girls behind me that are weighing and quickly reporting how much that particular tray of lobsters is they're then tied off into the packaging and pass into the aquarium trucks where they're kept alive to their next storage location most of these guys are headed all the way to China we're here in July during the harvest season which is critical for the lobster Farmers it's a race against the upcoming typhoons each year severe typhoons hit the Central Coast in September and November just one bad typhoon can wipe out a lobster farming family's entire livelihood it [Music] is [Music] they're not just selling for profits they're doing this to avoid losing everything in the storms [Music] this area is perfect for lobster farming the bay provides natural shelter from storms while the pristine Waters create ideal growing conditions on top of this the thriving fishery here provides Fresh Feed daily resulting in healthy organic lobsters that are of the highest quality in Vietnam the farmers produce spiny and green lobsters as well as fish and we're talking thousands no joke thousands of floating Lobster Farms dotting the water here [Music] these Farms is privately owned and operated by a single family and I'm Keen to see what life is like out on the water so I'm heading out with my friend Anne and his friend John who lives out on the farm to learn what this kind of life is like right now I'm sitting on what is the world's loudest and slowest engine however I'm currently with my friend Anna and his friends behind him who owns and runs one of these Lobster Farms we're going out there to feed his livestock lobsters this morning and we'll get a little bit of an insight as to what life is like out on one of these floating Lobster Farms here to check it out [Music] the moment we approach the camera system went into high alert oh oh so we've just arrived at one of the floating Palms owned by and friend called here they have everything they sort of farm a bunch of oysters that they both eat and feed to the lobsters behind me there there's a large cage that's suspended underground and a tube of tops that they can feed the lobsters through if needed the cages are lower than the feed and certain medicines are placed down the tube so that it gets right to the bottom without getting you know eaten by fish or Blown Away in the current that kind of thing these floating Farms are both incredibly simple and high-tech they're constructed of just bamboo plastic drums and they're held together by thick nylon fishing line they take just one day to construct and they last around three years these floating Lobster Farms serve as a second home for the family with someone living among the lobsters at all times so in each of these little sections of this floating fish farm there's a different kind of fish different species different purpose over there I just saw Chompy kachim which I don't know what that is in English but it's some kind of bird fish kamul which to me is often a kind of cod Coral trout sometimes but I mean the beautiful fish this is the one I'd want to eat for sure and who has been kind enough to show me around while feeding his lobsters this morning only heads back to land for supplies his setup is quite simple a tin roof shelter some basic cooking gear and a hammock for those power naps however don't let this old school Vibe fool you and has equipped this place with a sophisticated solar-powered security system to protect his precious stock these lobsters are worth their weight in gold and his family's livelihood depends on him so here we are preparing breakfast for thousands and thousands of lobster that live on this farm and I was kind of expecting it to be some kind of feed or maybe seaweed something like that but it is a mix of just about everything you can imagine chopped up fish bits baby fish oysters small baby mussels a whole bunch of different bags various kinds of sea creature that'll wait out portioned out and fed to the lobsters according to their size so we're about to check out the Tom or the lobster cage and and he's saying these are the the smaller ones so hopefully he's going to fish some out for us he meticulously checks each Lobster cage by diving in removing any dead lobsters as well as removing any leftover food from the previous day [Music] foreign [Music] everything off the bottom that the lobsters haven't eaten from the day before and the reason for that is that this food is it's now bad if the lobsters eat it maybe they're going to get sick maybe they're going to die the farm is sectioned off with separate net cages for each age group of lobster and each size and species has a separate food mix consisting of prawns fish clams and snails so in each of these little containers there are 500 baby Lobster that seems like a lot a lot of lobsters for this one guy to look after as the lobsters age and sorts them into separate cages so that they don't get overcrowded and he sells them at around 10 months to one year of age at that point they weigh around 500 grams each and has already sold his large lobsters this year and for good reason Central Vietnam is a place where the sea can take as much as it gives I couldn't leave without tasting the famous Lobster so I made my way to the most picturesque Shanty Restaurant I've ever seriously this place was stunning and I sat down to say that every bite the lobster here does not disappoint foreign [Music] this is the moment I've been waiting for I've been kicking it since very early in the morning getting out there into the lobster farms and all for this the lobster here is about 850 000 DND per kilo so it's like I don't know 35 dollars a kilo or something like that it's not Dirt Cheap especially considering just how many Lobster they were producing here I thought maybe it would be absolutely nothing they'd be giving away a lobster but that is not the case anyway here it is an absolutely stunning I assumed tropical Lobster of some kinds of some variety you know I recently had some of the best tasting the largest lobster I've ever had in my life with sunny in Tasmania thanks to two awesome local fishermen there and that was crayfish as we would call it in Australia there was a southern crane southern rock lobster I imagine this is some kind of tropical Lobster I don't know if it's going to taste the same let's check it out so here we go I've got to admit this Lobster is much smaller but here this is around about the size that they come to after eight months to a year of growth here we go I mean that just looks ridiculous it's just been freshly steamed well let's go I'm gonna dip it in this mystery sauce [Music] oh my God that is that is really crazy the sauce is sweet spicy and steam up stuff it's always going to be amazing and that is some of the freshest Seafood you can have I mean we're still alive a couple of minutes ago that sounds kind of brutal not fishy at all I mean that that is just absolutely amazing I don't know what more you could say I mean Lobster's Lobster but it never gets old that is absolutely amazing we'll try a little bit of this in this Mutual Chan make it more of a Vietnamese style dish this is just lime chili salt pepper you mix it all together to make one of the best tasting concoctions you can have here in Vietnam this is how you eat pretty much all Seafood here here we go step it in you can see the pepper there I mean wow I mean that is just incredible and with the view like this this is some of the most beautiful Vietnam that I've seen it's just absolutely stunning gorgeous views incredible value and amazing tasting Lobster what more can you ask thanks for watching guys hopefully you enjoyed that little edit on the full Ian Lobster Kingdom of Vietnam it was an absolutely a stunning corner of the Vietnamese Coastline that I think very few people check out and more shoot I'm currently in the north of Vietnam shooting a series on Northern Foods so if you enjoyed this one please give me a like and a subscribe and then you can hang out with me in the north of Vietnam eating some of that kind of food thanks for watching goodbye

Channel: Andrew Fraser

Views: 327,364

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Id: Gi2J3eKb2Mg

Length: 11min 23sec (683 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2023