3rd day in Tawau

Diamonds are a girl's best friend I love diamonds and I also love pearls too. I think both are very elegant jewellery. But do you know how pearls are formed has special significance to our lives. A foreign object such as a grain of sand falls into a mollusk, or popularly called an oyster. The creature responds to the irritant by producing multiple layers of nacre around it. Eventually it becomes a valuable pearl, thus, turning what’s a literal thorn in the flesh into something precious!

Edward Kong Malaysia 1st pearl farmer, for 15 years Edward has been quite cultivating precious South Sea Pearl on a remote island in Sabah. This unprotected water near the diving paradise of Sipadan island are a fitting birth place for the beautiful pearls Edward has labeled the cultivate.

We are here at Timbun Mata island. This beautiful island of the coast of Sabah is the base for Edward Kong's pearl farming business. look at the top of the picture that's the police base beside the farm. The farm is open to the threat of piracy.

Pearl farming is time and financially consuming industry that not many people would want to invest and the risk are high.

Poor thing the crews must be real tired

The mister is exhausted too~

Cultured pearls are genuine pearls form inside a living oyster after years of trial and error in research, Edward finally develope his own secret technics.

The crucial 1st step in cultivating pearls is the nucleation process.

Pairs of male and female parent oysters are used to produce larvae, which become baby oysters that are carefully nurtured until they are two years old and ready for nucleation.

A grafter deftly cuts an incision on the oysters with a scalpel and inserts a small piece of mantle tissue from donor native oysters alongside a nucleus acting as an irritant. Kong uses quality shell beads harvested from the Mississippi River bed in America.

Over the next two to four years of nurturing, the oyster continues secreting nacre over the bead to form a pearl.

After nucleation, the oysters are carefully submerged back in the sea on nylon nets strung together from wooden rafts.


Now is our turn to open up the oyster...I kinda felt bad doing it though cause you have kill it to see the pearl inside =(

guess what!!! There's two pearls in my oyster =D

Do you know who's the one cultivating all this beautiful pearls? Kong’s 50 workers are all native Bajau seafolk and many have been with him for the past 15 years. From the kitchen staff to the boatmen. They understand that a tear in the fabric rips apart the whole operations eventually so they practice zero-tolerance towards theft. They're the most friendly people I've ever met.

IT'S A WRAP!!!

I totally fell in love with the scenery...It's Oh-So-Beautiful~

“A pearl needs no embellishment. Their rarity and perfection are sufficient. That’s why the Chinese calls it chan chee (a true pearl). Similarly, pearls should be worn strung on just a simple silk thread. They are elegant and classic. That’s how pearls have endured the test of time to remain nature’s most beautiful gem.”

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One Response to 3rd day in Tawau

Cruel Angel said...

wat r u doing at my home state???

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