Sunday 30 November – visiting the Pearl Farm

We had a couple of snorkels between the two islands where the Manta cleaning station is meant to be with no success. The current whizzes you through at speed which is why you have to go through a couple of times. Big Squalls passed by during the day which kept us scurrying around closing and then reopening windows. The visibility was not great with all the rain and debris in the water. It was a cloudy afternoon so we decided to go a couple of miles in the dinghy to visit the pearl farm around the corner. We were told they were open all day Sunday and only after 4pm the rest of the week. We arrived and security greeted us looking a bit bemused but luckily the guy spoke some English. He went to call the boss to see if we could visit, he was obviously having a kip and sent a very charming engineer to talk to us. He explained how they do things here, like in French Polynesia, they use the same seed from a piece of Mother of Pearl shell from the Misissipi river in the States. Indonesian pearls are well known for their yellow colour. Xavi and I bought a few little items, which Xavi assures us were a bargain after researching the internet. Amazingly this farm produces 100 thousand pearls a year and they are considered small. The engineer was Javanese, very friendly and certainly not a salesman!

Rowan had organised for us to go to the Homestay for supper, Hans was meant to take us out to look for Mantas but had damaged his foot so can’t get into the water, which is sad as he is meant to be great at finding mantas. We arrived at supper time and it was clear the French lady in charge knew nothing about us, Hans was in Sorong. Supposedly the kitchen knew we were coming, the food was nowhere near as good as last time, which was rather disappointing. There were no locals about, last time it appeared to all be run by two very enthusiastic locals, this was just the 4 guests and a not very interested French lady. Luckily we had delicious chocolates to return to that Clint and Xavi had brought out.